Victoria Crossing, by Michael Wallace

"Victoria Crossing" is a well researched, beautifully written, work of historical fiction that transports us to New York City in the decade before the Civil War. Teeming with immigrants crammed into decaying tenements, New York at that time was a place where penniless hard workers could become prosperous.

One of those hard workers was Victoria MacPherson, a young Irish Protestant. After the potato crop failed for the third year, and her father was murdered for evicting families on orders from the local landed gentry, Victoria fled to New York. Sailing the Atlantic as a steerage passenger, she befriends Maeve, an Irish Catholic, whose brother has promised to meet her in New York. On their first day in America, however, Maeve's brother fails to appear and Victoria has her life savings stolen by a well dressed con man. Despite this, Victoria and Maeve find piece-work as seamstresses and begin their climb out of the rat infested tenements. Maeve's brother, Patrick, eventually does find them. Transported to Australia from Ireland at 16 for a crime he did not commit, he has made his way from Australia to the San Francisco gold rush to malaria-soaked Central America and finally to Manhattan.

Wallace skillfully recreates New York and Ireland in the 1840s. His depiction of the hopelessness of famine-ridden Ireland, the injustice and wildness of Australia, and the pestilence, despair and corruption of New York City, is vivid and realistic. As is his depiction of the gutsy Victoria as she builds a clothing business and demolishes any person who tries to cross her. "Victoria Crossing" is a fabulous novel that is on a par with the work of Howard Fast, Caleb Carr and Colleen McCullough.

(In exchange for an honest review, I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.)
Print Length: 320 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1503934136
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing (May 17, 2016)
Publication Date: May 17, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC