The Emancipation of Mary Sweeney

Fifteen year old, Mary Sweeney, leaves the family she loves, in Ireland, to seek her destiny in America. She believes that her leaving will lighten the load on her poverty stricken family, and her final decision comes when her alcoholic uncle puts “his filthy hands on her.”

Disguised as her brother, she travels on the “Harmony” heading toward America when all hell breaks loose. Jack Bane, an evil seaman, attacks her behind the galley, where she is working as a cook for the crew. Her struggle ends during a ferocious storm when the "Chinaman", Ah Kim, comes to her rescue. It is many months before she finds out the real reason for Bane’s visit that night. After her femininity is discovered, she connects with a neighbor, and his nephew, John Troy, who are also traveling to America. Three of these men play important parts in her life for years to come: One becomes her dreaded enemy, one her dear friend, and one the love of her life.

This exciting novel takes Mary across the Atlantic to Boston, then to San Francisco, where she works as a housekeeper and governess for an elderly Jewish woman. A friend of the woman's daughter, Kate Murphy, becomes an important part of Mary's life, when her uncle from Ireland arrives in America and takes advantage of the young girl.

This emotional tale involves, rape, murder, racism, misogyny, atonement, greed, and the Nez Perce Indian Wars, as Mary’s destiny leads her to the wild new frontier in Oregon, where excitement and danger become a way of life.