Follow the Stars Home

A captivating reimagining of the intrepid woman who – 8 months pregnant and with a toddler in tow – braved violent earthquakes and treacherous waters on the first steamboat voyage to conquer the Mississippi River and redefine America. The acclaimed author of The Seamstress of New Orleans brings to life Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt’s defiant journey of 1811 in this lush,evocative biographical novel for fans of Paula McLainGill PaulAllison Patakiand stories about extraordinary yet little-known female adventurers… It’s a journey that most deem an insane impossibility. Yet on October 20th1811Lydia Latrobe Roosevelt—daughter of one of the architects of the United States Capitol—fearlessly boards the steamship New Orleans in Pittsburgh. Eight months pregnant and with a toddler in towLydia is fiercely independent despite her youth. She’s also accustomed to defying convention. Against her father’s wishesshe married his much older business colleagueinventor Nicholas Roosevelt—builder of the New Orleans—and spent her honeymoon on a primitive flatboat. But the stakes for this trip are infinitely higher. If Nicholas’s untried steamboat reaches New Orleansit will serve as a profitable packet ship between that city and Natchezproving the power of steam as it travels up and down the Mississippi. Success in this venture would revolutionize travel and tradeopen the west to expansionand secure the Roosevelts’ future. Lydia had used her own architectural training to design the flatboat’s interiorincluding a bedroomsitting areaand fireplace. The steamshiphoweverdwarfs the canoes and flatboats on the river. And no amount of power or comfort could shield its passengers from risk. Lydia believes herself ready for all the dangers ahead—growing unrest among native peopledisease or injuryand the turbulent Falls of the Ohioa sixty-foot drop long believed impassable in such a large boat. But there are other challenges in storeimpossible to predict as Lydia boards that fall day. Challenges which—if survived—will haunt and transform heras surely as the journey will alter the course of a nation . . .