City of Glory: A Novel of War and Desire in Old Manhattan (Old New York, #2)

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Set against the dramatic backdrop of America’s second war for independence, Beverly Swerling’s gripping and intricately plotted sequel to the much-loved and “City of Dreams and ” plunges deep into the crowded streets of old New York. Poised between the Manhattan woods and the sea that is her gateway to the world, the city of 1812 is vibrant but raw, a cauldron where the French accents of Creole pirates mingle with the brogues of Irish seamen, and shipments of rare teas and silks from Canton are sold at raucous Pearl Street auctions. Allegiances are more changeable than the tides, love and lust often indistinguishable, the bonds of country weak compared to the temptation of fabulous riches from the East, and only a few farseeing patriots recognize the need not only to protect the city from the redcoats, but to preserve the fragile Constitutional union forged in 1787.Joyful Patrick Turner, dashing war hero and brilliant surgeon, loses his hand to a British shell, retreats to private life, and hopes to make his fortune in the China trade. To succeed he must run the British blockade; if he fails, he will lose not only a livelihood, but the beautiful Manon, daughter of a Huguenot jeweler who will not accept a pauper as a son-in-law. When stories of a lost treasure and a mysterious diamond draw him into a treacherous maze of deceit and double-cross, and the British set Washington ablaze, Joyful realizes that more than his personal future is at stake. His adversary, Gornt Blakeman, has a lust for power that will not be sated until he claims Joyful’s fiancee as his wife and half a nation as his personal fiefdom. Like the Turners before him, Joyful must choose: his dreams or hiscountry.Swerling’s vividly drawn characters illuminate every aspect of the teeming metropolis: John Jacob Astor, the wealthiest man in America, brings the city’s first Chinese to staff his palatial Broadway mansion; Lucretia Carter, wife of a respectable craftsman, makes ends meet as an abortionist serving New York’s brothels; Thumbless Wu, a mysterious Cantonese stowaway, slinks about on a secret mission; and the bewitching Delight Higgins, proprietress of the town’s finest gambling club, lives in terror of the blackbirding gangs who prey on runaway slaves. They are all here, the butchers and shipwrights, the doctors and scriv-eners, the slum dwellers of Five Points and the money men of the infant stock exchange…conspiring by day and carousing by night, while the women must hide their loyalties and ambitions, their very wills, behind pretty sighs and silken skirts.

The Following Text Is From Page 204 Of City of Glory: A Novel of War and Desire in Old Manhattan (Old New York, #2)
Lower Marlboro, Maryland, 8 P.M. It was still stinking hot. Even now when the sun was almost below the horizon, the pair of them were itching and sweating. Astor’s agent wore a townsman’s woolen cutaway and trousers. “Heat’s damnable,” he said, jerking his head toward the column of redcoats they were tracking, “but worse for the likes of them.” The second man wore buckskins and a broad-brimmed hat, and carried a long rifle with brass fittings and a polished oak stock. He jerked his head to indicate the flotilla of British boats moving slowly up the Patuxent, flanking the army on its right, fully visible from the hill that was their lookout point. “Makes you think the navy’s a better berth, don’t it?” There had been only enough horses left at Benedict to allow the general officers and their staffs to ride. The rest of the redcoats in their heavy woolen uniforms with packs and weapons strapped to their backs were on foot, strung out across the countryside in a long double file, their boots tramping in perfect unison. “Navy’s better until you get a taste of the cat,” the first man said. He pulled back from the brow of the hill and consulted his notes. “I reckon we’ve covered some twenty miles. At least we will have by the time they get where they’ll have to stop for the night.” “And after that?” “Either the Federal District or Baltimore.” “You’re still not sure?” “Not yet.” The man in city clothes was a professional surveyor, but neither he nor his companion carried any maps. It would finish them to be caught with such evidence. Even the few scrawls the surveyor had made in his notebook as they traveled might have had them hung for spies. “We won’t know for sure until we’re at Upper Marlboro,” he said, consulting the map that existed in his mind. “That’s where the road divides. One direction for Baltimore, one for Washington.” “How long till they get there?” “A few hours’ march still. They won’t go the distance this night. They’ll have to make camp soon as it gets dark and start again in the morning.” “Could be they’ll have something else to contend with before that.” The man in buckskins was a marksman who knew he could pick off any number of redcoats before their inaccurate muskets found the range. He’d start with the officers. Soon as there was any kind of offense by the Americans, he’d
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