Galveston, Texas, 1900: Twenty-year-old Emily Cleburne seizes the offer to become governess, but chasing her dream places her in the path of the deadliest hurricane in American history.
Emily is desperate to succeed after her father thrusts her from home with no lifeline. With little experience, what she lacks in confidence, she makes up for in grit.
Nathan Chambers, a reporter with a secret, pursues Emily’s affections. Drawn in, Emily agrees to keep what he reveals confidential, thereby threatening her position, and clashing with her integrity. Colin Hensleigh, a young minister, challenges her while proving himself a trusted friend.
Emily's alarm grows as the catastrophic storm bears down on the island. She cannot foresee what will happen and who will survive.
When the storm reduces Emily’s plans to rubble, adversity tests her character and faith in unimaginable ways. Will the teacher stand firm when all else gives way, or will she fail the test?
Galveston, Texas, 1900: Twenty-year-old Emily Cleburne seizes the offer to become governess, but chasing her dream places her in the path of the deadliest hurricane in American history.
Emily is desperate to succeed after her father thrusts her from home with no lifeline. With little experience, what she lacks in confidence, she makes up for in grit.
Nathan Chambers, a reporter with a secret, pursues Emily’s affections. Drawn in, Emily agrees to keep what he reveals confidential, thereby threatening her position, and clashing with her integrity. Colin Hensleigh, a young minister, challenges her while proving himself a trusted friend.
Emily's alarm grows as the catastrophic storm bears down on the island. She cannot foresee what will happen and who will survive.
When the storm reduces Emily’s plans to rubble, adversity tests her character and faith in unimaginable ways. Will the teacher stand firm when all else gives way, or will she fail the test?
Galveston Island, Texas, 1926
Only fools and those desperate for peace returned to the place that spawned their nightmares. Emily hadn’t planned on ever coming back.
She curled her fingers around the sheets and tamped down the urge to flee. The old nightmare had returned, conjuring rising water, sharp with the taste of brine.
Throwing off the covers smothering her chest, she slipped on a satin robe and paced over to the window. Goosebumps crawled across her flesh as the air penetrated the wrap. She rubbed her arms, more to soothe the tingling in her limbs than to ward off any chill.
Emily parted the curtains and peered out from the fifth-story window at the Gulf of Mexico, searching the horizon. Twilight’s purple haze shone on the water under a cloudless sky. Seeing it, she released a sigh into the room.
Her husband shifted on the mattress. In the gray light, she traced the outline of his body sprawled across the bed. A pillow muffled his soft snoring. Her gaze lingered on him while he settled and drifted deeper asleep.
His one request had been to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary where their courtship began. The pleading in his eyes had silenced any protest. Emily agreed to come for no other reason: she loved him more than life.
Returning here was proof.
If only that made what she was about to do easier. Before she could talk herself out of it, Emily exchanged the robe for a yellow cotton shift. She scratched a note of where she was headed on the hotel notepad and propped it next to her husband’s billfold. Careful not to rouse him, she lifted a wide- brimmed hat off the chair and tiptoed out of the room.
When she reached the curb, she glanced up and down Seawall Boulevard, noting the changes since the 1900 Storm. Hotels, restaurants, and homes faced the sea. To her right, the Crystal Palace’s causeway stretched over the boulevard. Beyond it, Murdock’s Bathhouse once more jutted out over the water, the waves lapping against the pilings.
The autumn breeze whiffled her bobbed hair, whipping a veil of copper waves in her eyes. She tucked the strands under her hat and peered back at the Hotel Galvez. Along the sweeping entrance, palm trees flapped in the breeze.
She hesitated. Pressure built in her ears as a Model T Ford clattered by.
You can do this. You must. Straightening, Emily faced the Gulf, the sea pulsing with an ancient rhythm. A whisper of the past beckoned her feet forward.
Her steps slowed as she neared the raised seawall, getting her first glimpse below. The long seam of concrete sutured the edges of land and sea, stitching closed the gaping wound dealt by the Great Storm. The barrier skirted the shoreline in both directions and buffered the island against further blows from wind and waves.
If only they’d built it sooner.
She bit back a sob. Tears pricked her eyes, threatening to pay tribute to the pain, to those lost. She batted her eyes dry. Not here.
The cadence of the surf pulled her gaze away. Beyond the seawall, the tide churned toward the shore. She took the stairs and descended to the sand below.
She paused to untie her low-heeled shoes and scoop them up by their straps. Her heels sank into the powdery sand as she approached the water’s edge. The low tide washed smooth the shoreline, packing it firm beneath her feet.
Seeking solitude, she set out up the beach, facing the sunrise. Along the way, she gathered up scalloped shells the tide had deposited on the sand. She’d use them later.
Emily paused on an empty stretch of beach. The tide’s ebb and flow mirrored the wariness pulling at her temples, flashing images of that fateful day long ago. The tide surging in the streets. Debris flowing swiftly as arrows. The dark watery gloom.
She blinked and blew out a breath, shaking off the scenes. No wonder she’d become vigilant at avoiding reminders of the Great Storm or its after- math. At all times, she avoided closed-in spaces. Smells, however, caught her unaware. A whiff of something foul or burning made her heart race and her stomach revolt, proof she hadn’t outrun the past or its stenches.
Though that dark time had flung a long shadow over the years, there were moments that glimmered at the edges. After all, in the end, the worst of times had brought her and her husband together.
For both their sakes, she longed to put right the past and rid herself of the terrible secret she had carried alone all these years. She hoped it wasn’t too late.
Emily knew in her heart what she needed to do.
Gathering her courage, she peered out at the horizon. The rising sun burned through the mist, casting an amber beam upon the water.
Lord, give me grace.
The tide splashed and foamed near her feet as what lay buried deep within started bubbling up to the surface. Her breathing slowed as she allowed the memories to flow unfettered.
She’d kept the letter all this time, the one that changed everything.
Colin crouched down and began scrolling letters in the sand. “A beloved professor once said ‘May your character be not a writing upon the sand, but and inscription upon the the rock.’ He went on to say, ‘May your whole life be so settled, fixed, and established that all the blasts of hell and all the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you.’”
A Writing upon the Sand follows Emily as she leaves her family’s farm and travels to Galveston to be a governess to her young cousins. The year is 1900, the same year the Great Galveston Hurricane, considered one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history, is destined to come ashore. As Emily adjusts from farm girl to city girl, she finds herself pulled between two opposing forces: Colin Hensleigh, a devout minister from England, and Nathan Chambers, a charming reporter harboring secrets. Emily finds her character tested, both by her relationships with her new friends and by the impending storm.
Two things made me pick up this book: first, the sample left me wanting more (always a great sign!); second, the story is about Texas and Texas weather. I am a native Texan myself, and like many Texans, I find Texas weather and history fascinating. These factors drew me back even after considering other debut novels to peruse. Imagine my surprise - and delight - to not only find the book enjoyable but to be so entirely engrossed with reading that I completely lost track of time and read well past midnight even though I needed to get up early for work the next day. Not many books have that kind of effect on me.
The narrative voice is intimate and friendly, taking a limited third-person perspective. We see the world through Emily’s eyes, only gaining knowledge as she gains it. This allows Emily’s curiosity to fuel the reader’s curiosity as she seeks to find answers to her questions and navigate the fast-paced world of the Golden Age of Galveston. Pre-hurricane Galveston is represented well as the “southern Wall Street” that it was, full of color, vitality, and action. Central to the story is the love triangle between the three characters, and it plays out the classic Betty and Veronica trope (arguably the most used and flexible of romance tropes). I had concerns that this would play out predictably, but because the characters interact in the real world with real impending doom, it feels believable. Enough secondary characters round out the cast to provide a playful pointillism of personalities. A few were so well drawn that I wondered if they were based on real people (I think we all have a Miss Pickering in our lives somewhere!).
With a story like this, there are few cons. The only ones I can think of are that the book probably needs another proofread (I caught at least one typo), and at times I wished the book were more descriptive. It’s dialogue-heavy. Now, the dialogue is fantastic - especially if you’re like me and you like assigning voices to characters - but I prefer more balance between dialogue and description. Fortunately, the narrative is fluid, and I can't think of a place where my suspension of disbelief was challenged.
One interesting thing I noted was that the book, though featuring the Great Hurricane, actually falls into a man vs. self-conflict rather than man vs. nature. The real conflict lies in Emily’s internal processing; she has to decide between two pathways based on morality and ethics, and the die is not truly set until after she passes through the hurricane. The storm becomes a catalyst for her true nature to rise to the surface - and that of her friends. I suspect the author has a good grasp on how trials reveal us as we truly are. She does not seek to question why suffering is bound up in the fabric of human existence, but her story does illustrate why suffering adds meaning to life - and that fact alone makes this book worth your time. Four stars.