The Navigator — Paperback

Name: The Navigator — Paperback
Brand: Cheyenne Richards
SKU: 9781737302254
Price: 14.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Inspired by the true story of an American legend

Circling the Sun meets Master and Commander in this emotionally rich historical novel of ambition, second chances, and the woman destined to set the ocean on fire.

$14.99 USD

Marblehead, 1841. 26-year-old Ellen can chart a course better than any man twice her age. Raised on her father’s schooner, she spent years guiding his ship past every ledge and tide-rip of the Eastern Seaboard, certain the sea would always be hers. Then her father dies, and the only life she was built for runs hard aground.

No ship will sign a woman. Nothing waits ashore but a soul-crushing marriage to a cabbage farmer and a lifetime of watching the tide go out without her. Until the harbor delivers the last man she expected to see again—Josiah Perkins Creesy. Perk, her childhood ally, now captain of a tea ship in desperate need of a navigator.

He can give her back the sea only as his wife.

A loveless match to a stranger, Ellen might have borne. But Perk is neither stranger nor safe—the childhood love she betrayed with a single lie, the one man alive who knows exactly who she is, and the one she’s never quite managed to stop wanting. Binding herself to him is another matter entirely.

The sea would belong to her again, but she would forever belong to him.

From the narrow lanes of Marblehead to the cutthroat wharves of New York, Ellen must decide how much of herself she’s willing to lose—and how much she’s brave enough to risk—to become the woman she was born to be.

The Navigator is the first book of The Navigator Series, a sweeping maritime saga inspired by Eleanor “Ellen” Creesy, the real woman whose navigation of the clipper ship Flying Cloud set a record that stood for 135 years. For readers of Paula McLain, Marie Benedict, and Kate Quinn.

Book details

Adult historical fiction · Maritime adventure
The Navigator Series, Book 0 (Prequel Novella)
212 pages
Published July 25, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7373022-5-4

Read a sample

January 1830.

The Californian’s deck groaned beneath Ellen’s feet like a living thing, sensing danger. One moment, the Cape Henlopen lighthouse had stood as a bright beacon against the gray horizon; the next, a blanket of fog had devoured the whole of sea and sky around her. The timing couldn’t have been worse. All around them lay the jagged teeth of the Hen and Chickens Shoal.

Ellen’s fingers trembled against the worn chart of Delaware Bay, clipped to the board she’d brought topside for the run into Lewes Harbor.

“Of course you can do this, Eleanor Prentiss,” Captain Papa had said before he collapsed at the helm, fever burning through him like wildfire. His last raspy command before they’d carried him below: “Have Ellen set the course.”

Five simple words had transformed her from the crew’s lucky charm—the captain’s quirky daughter with her curious gift for navigation—into the person responsible for their very lives.

She was barely sixteen years old.

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About the Author

Cheyenne Richards is an award-winning author, sailor, and traveler who’s lived in California, Australia, Singapore, and aboard a sailboat in the Pacific.

She writes bold, emotionally rich historical fiction inspired by real women, real adventures, and the courage it takes to become who we’re meant to be.

She’s relentlessly curious, loves most everything on the planet except Swiss cheese, and would probably be banned from driving if the DMV tested for sense of direction.

She shares her real-life misadventures on her blog.

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