Inspired by the True Story of an American Legend

Pride and Prejudice meets Master and Commander in this gripping historical maritime novel about ambition, independence, and the cost of defying convention.

Ellen Prentiss can navigate a ship through blinding fog and treacherous shoals using nothing but mathematics and the stars. In 1841, that makes her indispensable to any captain—and utterly unacceptable to a world that believes women belong in parlors, not on quarterdecks.

With the death of her captain father, Ellen's lost her mentor, ship, and purpose, and faces the suffocating prospect of a future trapped on land—until her childhood friend returns as Captain Perkins Creesy, commander of a tea trader bound for China.

Perk desperately needs a navigator skilled enough to shave precious weeks off the route to Canton—and Ellen needs passage back to the life that defines her. But their shared past holds a betrayal that nearly destroyed them both, and the sea offers no safe harbor for the secrets between them.

From the fog-shrouded shoals of Cape Henlopen to the cutthroat docks of New York, Ellen must chart a course between the world's expectations and her own fierce ambitions. The Navigator is the story of a woman who dared to command the stars themselves—and refused to let anyone else determine her destiny.

The Navigator is the prequel novella of The Navigator Series, a women's historical fiction series set during the golden age of sail, inspired by the true Eleanor "Ellen" Creesy, navigator of the fastest clipper ship in history. If you love Outlander, The Whalebone Theatre, or Lessons in Chemistry, you'll love this emotionally rich adventure of a woman ahead of her time.