50
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Featured Preorders
    • Award Winners
    • Audio Books
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Bookseller Displays
    • 50 Books for 50 Years
    • 25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
    • 25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Journals and Notebooks
    • socks
    • Games
  • Sell Books
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store

Don't Miss

  • Proud Voices Sale
  • PNW Authors Sale
  • Powell's Author Events
  • Oregon Battle of the Books
  • Audio Books

Visit Our Stores


Theodore McCombs: Impolite Influences: Theodore McCombs’s Bookshelf for ‘Uranians’ (0 comment)
Reality, even at its worst, is too polite to say everything that needs saying. The permission of speculative fiction is to reach above the merely plausible for those high shelves of meaning. That’s also the promise of queer fiction....
Read More»
  • Jenny Fran Davis: My Novel’s Clique: Jenny Fran Davis’s Bookshelf for 'Dykette' (0 comment)
  • Keith Mosman: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Emma Cline's 'The Guest' (0 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Underground River

by Martha Conway
Underground River

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9781501160202
ISBN10: 1501160206
Condition: Standard
DustJacket: Standard

All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$10.95
List Price:$26.99
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Burnside

Synopses & Reviews

Synopsis

Set aboard a nineteenth century riverboat theater, this is the moving, page-turning story of a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a new love.
It's 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue--until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena's Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.
May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who ferry babies given up by their slave mothers across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her new-found friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of Dr. Early who captures runaways and sells them back to their southern masters.
As May's secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May's predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.

Synopsis

The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Set aboard a nineteenth century riverboat theater, this is the moving, page-turning story of a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a new love.

It's 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue--until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena's Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.

May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who ferry babies given up by their slave mothers across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her new-found friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of Dr. Early who captures runaways and sells them back to their southern masters.

As May's secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May's predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.


4 1

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 4 (1 comments)

`
alekee02 , June 20, 2017 (view all comments by alekee02)
This is really May Bedlow’s story; the author has us walking in her shoes, from the first page to the end. A young woman who cannot tell a lie, or when she does she is reciting the Greek alphabet, or will she learn with all that happens in her life. Can you imagine being on a steamboat and having it blow up around you, and then having to swim for your life, thank goodness she knew how, and then she helps others. It does take over half the book to set up the side story of helping rescue babies across the Ohio River and to freedom. What a concept, when you think about the sacrifices these mothers made for their infants, a heart breaking decision for sure. May has a gift with a sewing needle, and because of that she is at the right place at the right time, and it becomes her life to live on a show boat, making all the costumes and helping put on the performances. Watch what happens when evil rears it ugly head and greed tries to take over, will our girl survive, and will this be then end of these daring rescues? I received this book through Touchstone Publishing and was not required to give a positive review.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

report this comment




Product Details

ISBN:
9781501160202
Binding:
Hardcover
Publication date:
06/20/2017
Publisher:
Touchstone Books
Pages:
352
Height:
1.20IN
Width:
6.20IN
Author:
Martha Conway

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$10.95
List Price:$26.99
Used Hardcover
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
1Burnside

More copies of this ISBN

  • Used, Hardcover, $18.50

This title in other editions

  • Used, Trade Paperback, $10.95
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Transparency ACT MRF
  • Sitemap
  • © 2023 POWELLS.COM Terms

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##