The Unstoppable Eliza Haycraft — Diana Dempsey

Longlisted, Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book 2023Beautifully written, compulsively readable... So says Indie Reader of The Unstoppable Eliza Haycraft - the riveting novel about a legendary woman in antebellum Missouri who allowed neither men nor society's conventions to keep her from cutting her own remarkable path. The year is 1844. On a May midnight, Eliza Haycraft flings herself into a canoe to escape a husband who beats her and a life that does the same. She is penniless and illiterate. Yet a decade later, sex and secrets will make her the wealthiest woman in St. Louis, a frontier boom town at the western edge of a restless nation.With only herself to rely on, Eliza becomes a prostitute and madam, then a property owner and puller of strings. She tangles with a vindictive rival and a governor who will become a Civil War turncoat. Scarred by experience, she finds true love but dares not admit it even to herself.And when civil war looms, Eliza faces a devastating choice: whether to risk her own life for the survival of everything-and everyone-she holds dear. Inspired by a true story, set in a tumultuous era too like our own, The Unstoppable Eliza Haycraft is historical fiction at its sweeping best: with richly drawn characters, a shattering love story, and an extraordinary heroine you will remember long after the last page is turned...