THE GODDESS OF SHIPWRECKED SAILORS by Skye Alexander

This review originally appeared in the February 2024 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

In this third installment of the author’s Lizzie Crane series, the heroine and her band are hired to play for a wealthy shipping magnate and his friends over the holidays in Prohibition-era Salem, Massachusetts. Lizzie’s curiosity leads her to an unwelcoming distant cousin, then to a 19th-century shipwreck which has ties to both her cousin and her employer, and also to a man’s death, which may or may not be related.

Chapters begin with quotes from an eclectic group—Ben Franklin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nietzsche, Duke Ellington and others—with just the right touch of foreshadowing. Lizzie is a likeable heroine, and her character is drawn with depth, particularly with respect to her musicianship and relations with her bandmates. The plot unfolds with many suspenseful scenes and is well-researched as Lizzie encounters aspects of Salem’s history, like the House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne, its Customs House, and the smuggling tunnels. Dialogue is tinged with a pleasing amount of period slang.

Prohibition-era music and glamor come alive in Gatsbyesque celebrations where pretty and inquisitive but lowborn Lizzie, whose behavior might be considered a bit outrageous by the standards of the 1920s, takes her place among socialites. Can Lizzie connect long-lost treasures, a shipwreck from two generations earlier, and a murder, and also possibly find love? An enjoyable historical mystery for fans of the flapper era.