Chesapeake Bound: An Annapolis Novel

A story of desperate immigrants looking for adventure, advancement, love, and, most of all, a sense of belonging in the colonies

London, 1763: Gifted musician and medical apprentice Michael Shea is living rough after being blackballed from working as a surgeon’s assistant. Not only does Michael lose his gig playing fiddle in a tavern, he also is framed for the murder of a tavern patron visiting from colonial Virginia. Worse, Michael realizes his ladylove wasn’t interested in true love. He was just a divertissement.

Heartbroken and out of options, Michael and his friend, Danny, escape the turmoil by shipping out on the misnamed brig The Delight as lowly indentured servants. On board are forty-eight other desperate souls--everyday people risking their lives to immigrate to the wilds of America, hoping for a better life in the colonies where they can break free of a rigid class system, prejudice, and poverty. Michael’s medical skills prove critical as the passengers endure the ravages of the long trans-Atlantic journey from London to Annapolis: killer storms, accidents, sickness, and Barbary raiders. While attending to the sick, Michael realizes that he has not yet escaped the murder for which he was framed--and that the real killer will do anything to keep his identity a secret.

Thomas Guay has degrees in history and communications from the University of Maryland and became a journalist because he enjoys writing and telling stories. After a career as a Capitol Hill reporter covering current events (tomorrow’s history), he refocused on colonial history and started researching what became this book, working as a host at the Charles Carrol House in Annapolis, as a reenactor and tour guide at other historic colonial houses, and researching the plight of indentured servants, the Peggy Stewart, and other tax-related uprisings in the Chesapeake Bay region. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland, and plays traditional fiddle tunes with the popular music group Them Eastport Oysterboys.