Salvaged Love: A historical novel of Key West 1828-1829

Shipwrecked in Key West

Salvaged Love is the story of a young girl’s journey into womanhood and her need to carve a place for herself in the small island community and in the heart of her husband. Set in 1828 at the cusp of Key West’s rise to wealth from ship salvaging, the story blends fact and fiction to entertain and highlight the fascinating history of Key West, Florida.

Nineteen year old Abigail Bennington eagerly accepts her father’s invitation to sail to the Caribbean in a desperate need to escape her current situation. They sail from England expecting a six month holiday. Plans turn awry when they become stranded in Key West, a newly settled island at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico, surrounded by treacherous reefs, and inhabited mostly by men. Abby becomes enchanted with the tiny island and its residents until circumstances force her father to insist she marry. Now locked in matrimony, can the young couple’s burgeoning love survive resentment and isolation?

This is the first book in the generational series Love in Key West. It is a complete story and can be read as a single book. However, much as we are our own story tied to those before and after us, so is this book tied to the first and those that will follow. My intention is to take the generations of my fictional characters through the captivating history of Key West.