The River Ballad

A stolen song. A drowned witness. A woman who refuses to be silenced.

Edwardian England. Music teacher Esther Vale is expected to stand before polite society and sing the celebrated river ballad arranged by the man she is supposed to marry.
Instead, she tells the truth.
The song belongs to Lark Madden—a forgotten boatwoman whose verses named the powerful men responsible for a deadly flood. Within hours, Esther is branded a thief, threatened with confinement, and forced to flee London carrying her late father’s secret journal.
Her search leads to Blackwater Reach, a river town built on dangerous water, working-class loyalty, and decades of carefully managed silence. There she finds a drowned chapel bell, a community still paying for an old crime, and Jonah Hart, a guarded boatman whose family was destroyed by the same buried scandal.
Every recovered verse brings Esther closer to the truth—and places another witness in danger. With her former suitor closing in and the town’s most powerful families determined to preserve their names, Esther must decide how much she is willing to lose to restore the voices history erased.
The River Ballad is an atmospheric historical mystery about stolen authorship, forbidden testimony, working-class resistance, and a slow-burning love founded on truth rather than rescue.