"The Abenaki Indians called him "patlihoz," meaning Black Robe. The French in Quebec thought of him as a saintly man, possessed of great learning and dedication. The English in Boston called him a bloody incendiary, and were convinced that he was inciting Indian attacks on their frontier settlements in Maine. The controversy continues today: What was Sebastian Rale really like? In this volume Mary Calvert gathers together the complete story of Father Rale. Starting with his birth in 1652 and his upbringing near the border of Switzerland, she follows the trail of evidence leading through his Jesuit education and years of teaching in France; his assignment to the New World; his first meeting with Abenakis in Canada; and his perilous journey to far-off Illinois. Upon his return from the Illinois mission, Father Rale was assigned to the village of the Norridgewock Indians on the Kennebec River in Maine. Here he would live for most of the remaining thirty years of his life, preaching and teaching, corresponding with his family in France and his superiors in Quebec, and compiling a massive dictionary of the Abenaki language for which he is best known today. Death came suddenly August 23, 1724, when Rale was killed along with scores of his beloved Abenakis in an English raid. The story in largely told by Father Rale himself, in excerpts from his published and unpublished letters, and passages from his dictionary. The English point of view is shown through excerpts from colonial documents, and the author has sketched in the background of the French and English settlement of North America. The story is a dramatic one, set against the backdrop of bloody Indian wars and brave pioneer families, heartbreaking tales of captivity, religious clashes, tragic misunderstandings, adventures and narrow escapes that seem stranger than fiction. Above all, there is the intimate picture she draws of the proud Maine Abenakis of the colonial era, and the educated man who shared his life and soul with them. The story of Sebastian Rale is truly a Maine epic." -- Publisher's description

Drawn to its rich maritime history, Ellie and Ty Malone purchase a grand home in Bath, Maine, and discover the story of a prominent shipbuilding family who lived there in the 1800s. Daughters of Long Reach explores love and loss through the lens of multiple families who are separated by time but connected by the rolling tides of the Kennebec River. Anna Malone, a modern-day daughter, arrives in Bath to heal and to begin to write again after losing her heart and her work to a charming, but duplicitous, filmmaker. Stella Rose leaves Bath in the 1940s to nurse wounded sailors, but she finds love in the middle of war and may never go home again. Thomas Goss, a sea captain at the turn of the 20th century, comes back to Bath to save his soul, but he almost loses it completely. Across three centuries, Long Reach ties hearts and souls together with a sailor's knot.

In late 1775, a few months after the first shots of the Revolution were fired, Benedict Arnold led more than one thousand troops into Quebec to attack the British there. Departing from Massachusetts, by the time they reached Pittston, Maine, they were in desperate need of supplies and equipment to carry them the rest of the way. Many patriotic Mainers contributed, including Major Reuben Colburn, who constructed a flotilla of bateaux for the weary troops. Despite his service in the Continental army, many blamed Colburn when several of the vessels did not withstand the harsh journey. In this narrative, the roles played by Colburn and his fellow Mainers in Arnolds march are reexamined and revealed.

* 2009 John Burroughs Medal for Best Nature Writing * There are said to be only four places in the world where two major rivers--with entirely separate watersheds--converge at their mouths to form a common delta.

Dr. Silvester Gardiner was an extraordinary individual. In telling his story, Coolidge traces the early settlement of Maine, from the first settlers struggling to survive bitter winters in crude huts, to the gradual establishment of trade, sawmills, gristmills, and other commerce, and then attempts to increase the population with immigrants and instill civilization through the firm hands of religion, government, and Dr. Gardiner.