"Whitt ducked under the lintel and stepped down onto a brick floor. The floor was a good six inches lower than the door's threshold - but he had known it would be so and that realization stopped him dead in his tracks, just as the sense of deja vu struck. He had ducked under the lintel, and his step down had been fluid, almost practiced. He recalled a warning: 'Watch your step. The floor is a goodly step down inside.' Or did he imagine that?
The story of the Fo'c'sle Door begins in present day Canada with a very unusual crime scene but quickly takes you to the 1700's and the little fishing village of Ryeport on the coast of England. Here the tale unfolds around Roddy McDowd, who has been unwillingly relegated to what he sees as a 'God forsaken place' as a punishment for his transgressions and a mysterious, striking figure from Haiti - Paul Latour, whose fate becomes entwined with that of the villagers as he tries to save his child from a violent sea captain.
This compelling tale transports the reader over hundreds of years, and interesting vibrant characters, who through adventures with smuggling, murder and the supernatural, play a part in one man's attempt to fix a 'deal made with the devil'. The outcome will keep you guessing right until the end.
The Fo'c'sle Door was definitely a labour of love begun during Dad's retirement. His sketch books are full of drawings, plot layouts building schematics, notes and descriptions of characters. He was almost finished and now working on the laborious task of fine tuning 1200+ pages, when he suffered a serious stroke
None of us were writers, nor did we know anything about the publishing world, but the next two years, chapter by chapter, we worked with Dad to remove, as much as possible, any duplication or grammatical problems.
We finally reached a point where we felt we could not remove one more comma and took the next step to publish. The sketch of the door was significant because Dad, a gifted artist, was now struggling with writing but managed to draw what we thought was a brilliant rendition of this important part of the story. Thus when it came to cover design, we insisted that it be used.
Happily in 2013, we finally were able to put a copy of his published book into our Dad's hands.
The reviews were great and the thank-you cards and congratulations from those who read it were wonderful. However, as mentioned, nobody knew how to do the next and most important part - marketing and sharing The Fo'c'sle Door with more readers.
Even though it has taken some time, to say the least, we are determined to ensure that this important part of our Dad's legacy gets the recognition it deserves.
Working with the professionals at Hasmark Publishing, in September of 2020, we celebrated Dad's birthday with the re-publishing of his wonderful book. While there were some editorial changes it was important to us that the story remain Dad's story. "The Ryeport Redemption" trilogy is now available and hopefully the new format will appeal to those who are intimidated by a books size. Cheers.
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