April 14, 2023

Out Front the Following Sea
Leah Angstman
Regal House Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 9781646031948 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781646031955 (ebook)

Novel Set During King William’s War Wins Best Historical Fiction Award

Leah Angstman’s debut novel, Out Front the Following Sea, has won the Tyler R. Tichelaar Award for Best Historical Fiction in this year’s Reader Views Literary Awards. It has also been a finalist for the Chaucer Book Award, National Indie Excellence Award, Da Vinci Eye Award, and Eric Hoffer Book Award.

Being descended from numerous New England Puritans and an enthusiast for this time in history, I was pleasantly surprised by the novel’s setting and time period—New England during King William’s War—a time little known in American history today, but it was a pivotal moment for New England. The Salem Witch Trials took place during it, and there was a fear of invasion by the French. The story takes place in 1689 before the Salem Witch Trials resulted in people no longer believing in spectral evidence. Consequently, a belief in witchcraft was still very strong in the colony and often cited as the cause of anything that went wrong.

Angstman’s heroine, Ruth Miner, is the victim of the prejudices that reign in the colony largely as a result of the war, plus because of the Puritan mindset of the time. She lives outside of town with her dying grandmother. Those in the village believe she is a witch and blame her for everything bad that has recently happened. Eventually, Ruth’s grandmother dies and Ruth has to flee the colony when the townspeople come to kill her.

Ruth manages to escape on a ship with the charming Owen Townsend, a young man she’s known since childhood. They have a past that haunts them, but Ruth also believes she can depend on him, at least most of the time—she had begged him to take her away before winter came and her grandmother died, but he had been unable to help. Now that he is back, he takes her to Stonington, Connecticut, where she tries to begin a new life free of the rumors that she is a witch.

But wherever she is, Ruth finds herself having a hard time adapting to Puritan life, even though her own grandparents helped found a colony, because Ruth loves to read and learn and she is strong-willed. Another problem is that Owen’s mother was French, so he speaks French. Ruth is eager to learn the language. However, the French are at war with England so anyone speaking French or of French descent is suspected of being a traitor to the Crown.

Ruth is taken in by a couple who have lost their children in a recent sickness and need someone to help them. But it isn’t long before Ruth catches the eye of men in town, especially Samuel Whitlock, a well-to-do widower. Unfortunately, Samuel is the opposite of Ruth. He is boorish and unimaginative and doesn’t believe women should read. Ruth feels bored and repelled by him until she realizes she is pregnant with Owen’s child. But Owen has returned to sea, and Ruth knows if she does not act quickly, she will again become the town pariah.

What happens next surprised me, and honestly, the entire novel was full of surprises. Every time I thought I knew what would happen, something else did. Largely, these surprises were due to how Ruth refused to be bound by what was socially acceptable in her time. Besides reading plays, learning French, and loving a man she’s not married to, she befriends a member of the Pequot tribe, and she is not afraid of speaking her mind, even when it puts not just her reputation but her life in danger.

I also appreciated how much research the author clearly did. In the historical note in the back, Angstman discusses how she used the names of people who actually lived in the town of Stonington. The books Ruth reads, the beliefs in witchcraft, and the overall social conventions of the time all rang true for me since I’ve read a lot about the Puritans and the literature of the period. Each chapter also begins with a quote from a historical person or work that would have been known in Ruth’s day.

As the plot progressed, I admired again and again Ruth’s courage. I doubt there were many women like her in late seventeenth-century New England, but had there been, the narrow-minded beliefs of the Puritans might have lost their hold much sooner. Out Front the Following Sea is a story about the quest for freedom among a people who came to this country for religious freedom but denied any form of freedom to others. Perhaps my favorite character in the novel turned out to be a member of the Society of Friends who talked more sense than the Puritans in the novel.

Anyone who enjoys historical fiction with strong female protagonists and plenty of plot twists and a little swashbuckling will enjoy Out Front the Following Sea.

For more information about Leah Angstman and Out Front the Following Sea, visit Amazon.

— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of Narrow Lives and When Teddy Came to Town