Blog Tour/Review: The Underground River by Martha Conway

I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for The Underground River by Martha Conway.  Published in the UK under the title The Floating Theatre, I really enjoyed the book when I read it last year and I’m pleased to be able to share my review with readers who may have missed it first time around.

Visit the tour page here to see the other great book bloggers taking part in the tour and for links to other reviews, excerpts, guest posts and Q&As with the author.  On the tour page, US residents can also enter the giveaway for a chance to win one of five custom-made coffee mugs. Perfect for sipping a hot drink while you enjoy the book!

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About the Book

It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue – until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states.

May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who ferry babies given up by their slave mothers across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her new-found friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of Dr. Early who captures runaways and sells them back to their southern masters.

As May’s secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.

Praise for The Underground River

“The Underground River is both a dear love story and a page-turning adventure about the Underground Railroad – and an unwilling participant. An extraordinary cast of memorable characters gives this book irresistible appeal while the setting on the watery boundary between North and South places them in dangerous and morally ambiguous territory. A captivating, thoughtful, and unforgettable read.” (Kathleen Grissom, author of The Kitchen House and Glory over Everything)

“It is part of Martha Conway’s gift as a writer to weave stories from the richest and most interesting periods of American history. Set on a nineteenth century floating theatre on the Ohio River, The Underground River is a riveting and atmospheric novel about slavery, betrayal and redemption, with a memorably forthright heroine, and a plot as fast flowing and twisty as the river itself.” (Louisa Treger, author of The Lodger)

“Warning: The Underground River is a page-turner. Be prepared to stay up late reading, because once you start you won’t want to put it down. From the first page to the last, Martha Conway’s novel is riveting, immersing the reader in the adventures of an unlikely heroine who finds courage, independence and love amid the social turmoil of the Underground Railroad. Vividly drawn settings, original characters, and perilous situations make this mesmerizing book one you will remember for years to come.” (Amy Belding Brown, author of Flight of the Sparrow)

“Well-researched and gripping to the end, The Underground River is a vivid look at a pivotal chapter in American history.” (The Mercury News)

“Readers will profit from narrator May’s attention to detail and will appreciate the richly drawn showboat and the North-South border setting.” (Booklist)

Format: Audiobook, hardcover, ebook   Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 20^th June 2017                          Genre: Historical Fiction

Purchase Links*
Barnes and Noble ǀ  Amazon.com
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Underground River on Goodreads

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My Review

I was drawn to this book by the description and, I have to admit, the gorgeous cover.  What I enjoyed was the story of May and the colourful characters who make up the members of the floating theatre as they travel down river stopping at small towns to give performances to the local people.

The author has chosen to make her protagonist, May, rather naïve, uncomfortable in social situations and someone who takes everything very literally.   This does help explain why May responds as she does to certain events in the narrative.   So it’s lovely when May finally learns to suspend her disbelief and become immersed in what she is seeing on the stage in the way Hugo, the theatre owner, hoped she would.  ‘But then, rather quickly if the actors are any good, something happens and somehow you drop into the fiction of the Italian countryside, and there you are.  You forget all about the people around you because the only people that exist are the actors on stage, and the only world is the world they are playing out for you.  You’ve lost yourself in the fiction.’  Isn’t that what we all hope from a book as well?

Although the storyline does touch on the issue of slavery and its cruelty, The Underground River is not an in-depth analysis of the realities of slavery, the abolition movement and what became known as the ‘underground railroad’.  However, it does not set out to be.  Instead it’s a well-written, entertaining story, with a likeable heroine, full of engaging characters in an imaginative setting during a turbulent period of American history. It’s also a tender and touching love story.

I received an advance reader copy courtesy of NetGalley and publishers, Bonnier Zaffre, in return for an honest review.  [Review relates to the UK edition published under the title The Floating Theatre.]

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In three words: Enjoyable, engaging, romantic

Try something similar… The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier

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About the Author

Martha Conway grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, the sixth of seven daughters. Her first novel was nominated for an Edgar Award, and she has won several awards for her historical fiction, including an Independent Book Publishers Award and the North American Book Award for Historical Fiction. Her short fiction has been published in the Iowa Review, Massachusetts Review, Carolina Quarterly, Folio, Epoch, The Quarterly, and other journals. She has received a California Arts Council Fellowship for Creative Writing, and has reviewed books for the Iowa Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. She now lives in San Francisco, and is an instructor of creative writing for Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program and UC Berkeley Extension. She is the author of The Underground River.

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