linda collison's Sea of Words
charting a course from imagination to publication
surgeons mate From Historical Novels Review , issue 58; November 2011
My thanks to Eva Ulett for reading and reviewing Surgeon’s Mate; book two of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series. Although Ulett feels that Surgeon’s Mate may be more to the liking of young adult readers than fans of historic naval fiction, I must clarify that I wrote not for younger readers but from the first-person perspective of an 18th-century teenager; a coming-of-age story in a nautical setting.
Throughout the course of the planned series Patrick/Patricia matures and grows old in a serialized maritime historical saga, in which new characters will be introduced. In Yankee Moon, book three, I am experimenting with multiple perspectives, expanding the story beyond Patricia’s immediate point of view.
I welcome constructive feedback from readers who found merit with Surgeon’s Mate and Star-Crossed (chosen by the New York Public Library to be among the Books for the Teen Age — 2007) and from other authors.
Hot off the press here is the review in the November hard copy issue of Historical Novel Review:
SURGEON’S MATE
Linda Collison, Fireship, 2011, $19.95, pb, 292pp, 9781611791426
HNR Issue 58, November 2011 | Reviews | 29
17th Century — 18th Century| 18th century |
Patrick MacPherson, born Patricia, is surgeon’s mate aboard the frigate H.M.S. Richmond. The ship and her survivors depart the 1762 siege of Havana at the opening of the story. During the siege, MacPherson earned the approval of the ship’s surgeon and the suspicion of some of her shipmates. The life MacPherson has built as a medical officer in the Royal Navy is further complicated by a romantic attachment to the ship’s gunner, Brian Dalton. In New York City, where the Richmond has carried the surviving infantrymen, MacPherson’s professional and personal existence are threatened by the jealousy of the Richmond’s other surgeon’s mate. Compassion for a patient removes MacPherson from the Royal Navy’s reach and sends her in company of New England smugglers into the Caribbean.
Surgeon’s Mate is a sea adventure from a unique perspective. MacPherson struggles to gain competency in 18th-century medicine and deals with the pressure of discovery when “Every good thing I had done, was undone by the fact I hid a woman’s body underneath these masculine clothes.” Patricia’s struggle with the age-old dilemma of wishing to have it all is interestingly played out in the microcosm of a mid-18th century ship of war, and in an America approaching revolution against Europe. She finds herself torn between a desire for freedom, respect, and the professional challenges of the life of a man and a surgeon, and the love of a good man.
Patricia’s story may appeal more to a young adult audience than action-loving fans of naval fiction. This is the second novel in a series detailing the adventures of Patricia / Patrick MacPherson, inspired in part by historical accounts of 17th- and 18th-century women who worked in men’s guise as soldiers, sailors, and marines.
– Eva Ulett
Thanks to the Historical Novel Society. for reviewing Surgeon’s Mate in Historical Novels Review. (To become a member and receive the magazine click on the link.)
Star-Crossed was conceived at the helm of the Endeavour Replica in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on the middle watch. Bob and I had signed on as voyage crewmembers for the incredible experience of learning to sail a square-rigged ship. HM Bark Endeavour, a 20th century replica of Captain Cook’s 18th century converted coal carrier from Whitby, England, had been built in Australia and was circumnavigating with a small permanent crew aided by temporary voyage crew (willing lubbers like Bob and I) who participated in various legs of the journey. The three-masted Endeavour is a floating museum, a veritable time machine and we were fortunate to play our parts as 18th century ordinary seamen. 
Bob and I served on the vessel’s three-week crossing from Vancouver to Hawaii in October, 1999. We were among 54 souls aboard; most of us students, retired professionals, parents and grandparents in our former 20th century lives. We worked and slept side by side and learned the ropes in short order. We paid for the privilege of being pressed seamen and it was one of the most thrilling and difficult experiences of my life.
A handful of us were women. In this 20th century egalitarian world we were expected to do everything the men were expected to do; from climbing aloft and out on the footropes of the yard arms to make and furl sail, heaving together on halyards, sheets, lifts and braces, braiding reef points, scrubbing decks, doing dishes, keeping lookout, and taking our turn at the helm.
It was during my trick at the helm when the idea for Star-Crossed (working title, Orion Rising) was born. If I, a middle-aged woman, could do a man’s work aboard ship then surely a younger lass would have no problem passing as a lad and going to sea, just like those picaresque accounts from previous centuries. Accounts that proved to have a basis in fact, I was to learn when I began to research the Period in earnest. Aboard Endeavour, the character Patricia was born from my imagination, inspired by lack of sleep, fear, and a close-knit commeraderie that quickly developed amongst us. I didn’t yet know the plot but I was living the setting, I was imagining the character, her motivation, what drove her. I knew what she wanted, and what she feared. When I got off the ship in Kona I still had years of research ahead of me, but the character Patricia was vigorously alive and refused to be ignored.
In 2006 Star-Crossed was published by Alfred A. Knopf as a young adult book. My agent was Laura Rennert of Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and I am grateful to her for hooking me up with such an esteemed publisher. My editor, Michelle Frey, was also editing Christopher Paolini’s Eragon series. The day I signed the contract with Knopf was the highlight of my literary life, thus far.
I wrote Patricia’s story from the viewpoint of a teenager, never intending it to be a novel for young adults. (Had I intended it for young readers I would have peopled it with vampires and wizards.) Yet the New York Public Library chose Star-Crossed to be among the Books for the Teen Age – 2007. I was honored but still confused over the whole marketing issue. Is To Kill A Mockingbird a Young Adult book because it is told from a girl’s point of view? What about Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye? When I was young there were no YA books. At a certain age if you loved to read, you started reading adult books and adults read books written from the perspective of children and teens. These were called Coming of Age novels. Yet my agent convinced me the YA market was the way to go. What did I know about marketing?
After signing the contract it took a more than two years for Star-Crossed to be published. A lifetime, it seemed. What was I to do while waiting to edit the final galleys? Write the sequel, of course! And so I wrote the first draft of Surgeon’s Mate; Book Two of the Patricia MacPherson Nautical Adventure Series. Yet Knopf didn’t want to publish a series or even a sequel, the initial sales hadn’t been promising. My agent didn’t see it as a lucrative venture either, and so Surgeon’s Mate languished “on the shelf” for four years until Nautical Fiction maven David Hayes in England discovered me on Facebook and alerted Tom Grundner of Fireship Press, publisher of historical and nautical fiction about my yet unpublished sequel.
Surgeon’s Mate was published in April, 2011 as adult historical fiction, and is available in trade paperback and electronic editions from the publisher and through bookstores worldwide. Now Star-Crossed is going out of print and if Knopf doesn’t want to reprint it, Fireship does! What luck!
Patricia MacPherson is alive and well, struggling to get by disguised as a young man. She is keeping me busy, I’m deep into book three (working title, Rogue’s Island) which I plan to have finished early 2012. Thanks to David Hayes’ historicnavalfiction.com and Fireship Press I am to write a series after all.
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