This historical novel about three fictitious, Victorian-Era women has as its setting the location of one of the most shocking and unpredicted events of the nineteenth century - the partial collapse of the world's longest railway-bridge, the River Tay Bridge of Dundee, Scotland (perceived, like the Titanic, to be indestructible).
All three of these women's lives come to be significantly altered by that December 28, 1879 mishap which resulted in the drowning of an entire train of travelers - each woman an actual or would-be passenger, or acquainted with one or more (fictional) passengers, on that train.
The first heroine is a thirty-year-old widow dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and its aftermath. The second and third are younger women, one extremely attractive, the other equally unattractive. The former is found pursuing alternatives to an unwanted, arranged marriage, the latter, victim of a series of unfortunate events due to her lack of "beauty capital".
In the course of telling the women's stories, this merged-trilogy, romance novel addresses issues such as social class and women's rights in nineteenth-century Scotland; ways that physical attributes potentially affect women's lives; female strength and perseverance; and Quaker perspectives and practices.
In the end, each woman "gets her man".
About the Author: Born and reared in Chicago, Illinois, author Dolores Dick is a 96-year-old resident of Wichita, Kansas, history buff, voracious reader, and author of one additional novel (The European Union).
Of Scottish heritage, she spent a total of eight years, at various times between 1950 and 1973, visiting and living in the home of her ancestors. It was there and then that she learned the details of the terrifying railway-bridge accident that served as inspiration for this novel, written by her during the 1970's.
Ms. Dick is also a WW II Army Veteran and a subsequent, consequent pacifist and Quaker.
