The Story Behind Ocean of No Escape

Okay. I confess. This is actually an email/newsletter but it’s pretty fun so I thought I’d share (since I haven’t had much posting lately). And maybe it will get you excited to read the Goldtown Adventures (at least Ocean of No Escape). It’s my favorite of them all, since I love the Horatio Hornblower A&E TV series from years and years ago. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy. And . . . if you are a newsletter subscriber, you get a link to the audiobook version of this book (I’m listening to it again this past week or two.) I’m afraid there is no link here in the blog past, as that is too public. It’s a subscriber-only gift.

Lately, my emails have been filled to the brim with Circle C content or Timberland (Jenny Grant) updates. But this week’s email is all about one of my favorite books, Ocean of No Escape (Goldtown Adventures book 6). I wanted to take Jem on an adventure that was completely different from a gold-rush plot and have him work through the very real possibility that he would never come home, or at least not for several years. Jem was the perfect age (almost 14) to be “shanghaied” as a cabin boy on a clipper ship–a fast-moving sailing ship headed for the Orient.

If you are a Circle C and “Andi” fan, I urge you to climb aboard the Surprise with Jem for this rip-roaring adventure. Near the end of this “story behind the story” email, I have included a link to download the full-length audiobook of Ocean of No Escape. It’s a stand-alone novel, although the events of book 5 trigger the reason why Jem is even in San Francisco at the wrong place at the wrong time. Hang on and learn how I came up with this story, how much I learned about 19th century sailing, and how much fun I had writing it for you!

The Story Behind the Story

Writing book 5, Valley of Treasure, was easy compared to this final book. I did not have to do much research past hiking some of the trails near Mariposa, California, to get the feel for Jem, Ellie, and their prospector friend Strike’s journey to find their lost gold.

Nathan’s Bone Repair

As much as I would’ve liked to, I couldn’t make this stuff up. Cousin Nathan broke both his tibia and fibula (lower leg bones) in an accident in book 5. Here’s what I did to research, with the hope of finding something I could turn into a belieable story:

• First of all, I was blessed to learn about a real doctor, Hugh Toland, who actually did bone surgery at City and County Hospital in San Francisco. While he was considered stern with male patients, this doctor was especially gentle with children. For real! Yay! One worry checked off.✔️
• Next, I discovered that City and County Hospital was a real place in 1865, one of 5 hospitals in San Fransicso. I was glad to find this out. The hospital was located close enough to the wharf so that Jem could get tired of waiting to see his cousin and–with Pa’s permission–go visit the waterfront. Here’s an actual map of the location, and yes it took forever to find this map. The small white “H” is the hospital, and it’s only a couple of blocks from the waterfront.✔️

Ships and Shanghaiing

• Learning about the awful business of “shanghaing” was easier, since there is plenty recoreded about this practice. Ship captains always needed more sailors, especially in the port of San Francisco, where crewmembers abandoned ship and headed for the gold fields. Shipmasters hired men to grab unsuspecting sailors in saloons and drug them. Some saloons along the wharf even had trap doors that opened, and down went the victims. Once aboard ship, their names were forged on the papers, and they were stuck for at least two years. I twisted the story to have the Surprise in need of a cabin boy, since the previous one had died aboard ship a few weeks before the ship docked. Jem, wanting nothing more than to see one of these ships, is nevertheless a cautious street-smart kid (growing up in lawless Goldtown). But in spite of his declining the offer to go aboard and “see” the ship, he is overpowered, drugged, and taken aboard. And that’s when the fun of Jem’s story begins! ✔️
• Now deep into the story, I had to learn everything that Jem needed to learn to survive the voyage. To make his story real, I had to learn about the “bells,” which govern time. I love the A&E mini-series Horatio Hornblower, but I could never figure out those crazy bells. They ring at all hours of the day and night. Well . . . I know about them now! And so does Jem. 🔔 Plus, I spent hours finding out how a sextant works, what tasks a cabin boy would be expected to perform, and if a boy would really climb to the Crow’s Nest at the top of the main mast. (Yes, he would, and he does.) ✔️
• Oh, not to mention learning what “ratlines,” “shrouds,” “forecastle,” and other ship’s terms meant. By the time I finished writing Ocean of No Return, I felt as if I had been on a two-month journey right along with Jem.

Jem Escapes: Fact or Fiction?

• Are you wondering how I could believably have Jem escape from a sailing vessel in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, bound for China? Without giving any spoilers, I decided I needed to find out if families ever traveled with their captain-husband and/or captain-father. To my delight, I discovered there were many captains who did not want to be separated from their wives and children for months and even years. The captain’s wife nursed sick sailors and was a helpmate to her husband in many ways. Some were even navigators! In my story, eleven-year-old Alice lives aboard the Surprise in a beautifully furnished cabin, does schoolwork (hmm, instead of homeschool, do you think they called it “shipschool”?), ⛵ and befriends a lonely cabin boy, Jem. You can guess the rest.
• I based some of this on Mary Ann Patten, whose husband commanded the ship, Neptune’s Car, in 1851. When the captain became ill, Mary was pregnant with their first child. She took command of the clipper ship and brought it safely around Cape Horn to San Francisco! What a gal! ✔️

Hope you enjoyed this quick peek! You can get your own audiobook of Ocean of No Escape pretty cheap: $4.99.