Guest Post: Showboat Soubrette by Brodie Curtis
- Archaeolibrarian
- 45 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Book details:
Book Title: Showboat Soubrette
Series: n/a
Author Name: Brodie Curtis
Publication Date: December 10, 2025
Publisher: Westy Vistas Books
Pages: 367
Genre: Historical Fiction
Any Triggers:n/a
@brodiecurtisauthor @thecoffeepotbookclub
@curtisauthor @thecoffeepotbookclub
FROM STAR SHOWBOAT SINGER TO PIRATE PREY ON THE WICKED RIVER!
Showboat singer Stella Parrot’s star rises in the Antebellum South with every sold-out performance along the lower Mississippi River. When a river pirate viciously assaults her, new friends Toby Freeman and John Dee Franklin foil the attack. However, the pirate’s family is bent on revenge.
Stella, Toby, and John Dee escape their riverboat with able assistance from young cub pilot Sam Clemens, only to be pursued by the notorious Burton Gang. As the trio runs for their lives, mortal perils await at every turn: a fierce storm, high-stakes gambling confrontations, deadly combat, and a cotton boat up in flames. Stella, a Cherokee Indian, and Toby, a free Black man, and their friend White man John Dee endure relentless racial prejudices and injustices in the gritty underbelly of the Wicked River while fleeing to New Orleans—where the Burtons will be waiting!
SHOWBOAT SOUBRETTE’s fast-paced lower river adventure chase features romantic showboat scenes and is unsparing in its exploration of the bigoted and sometimes lawless riverboat era.
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How did you balance romance, danger, and the harsh realities of race and injustice in the riverboat era?
I sometimes describe my books as historical stories with grit, characters to remember, and a dash of romance. Two romances bud in my latest novel, SHOWBOAT SOUBRETTE, in the most trying of circumstances. My book is set in the Antebellum South and its three young adult protagonists are a female Cherokee Showboat singer, a physically strong and handsome freed Black man, and a charismatic White man.
Their story begins in a safe and even pleasurable riverboat environment until a violent attack forces them to flee into the harsh underbelly of the Lower Mississippi River. Absolute dependence on each other in a world of cruel social division and lawlessness forges a deep bond among the three. They learn their bond goes even deeper than they might have expected, and rising passions among the three begin to feel like destiny.
Each reveals bits of themselves to the others in quiet moments. Then they face mortal dangers together. Sharing terrifying and life threatening perils creates dependence, intensifies sensations, and shatters conventions and inhibitions. As the three party alliance strengthens, so do romantic feelings, but twisting, turning events make any sort of cozy love story illusory.
My characters’ romantic desires deal with the realities of institutional racism and more precisely, laws against White and Black romantic partnering. Anti-miscegenation laws criminalized interracial marriages. Yet privileged slave-owning planters seemed to make their own rules regarding interracial relations. One of my characters is told by a wizened old doctor that “there weren’t a fine-featured Black woman on the lower river who hadn’t had to deal with a White man.” Then, in New Orleans, interracial relations were more complex. Some white men partnered with “placee” women of mixed blood and created second families in what was apparently a somewhat widespread practice. Black woman served along White women in low-end brothels and in some of these places Black men were customers alongside White men.
My characters confront these pressures. It was obvious from my research that clandestine expressions of feelings, and even deception,were necessary for interracial relationships among my characters to flourish. I imaged events that created conditions for private moments, where my characters could have dialogue and thoughts away from the eyes and ears of those who would demean or punish them for their forbidden passions. My characters yearned for a place to pursue their loves without racial injustice. Maybe my next story will take them there…
Raised in the Midwest, Brodie Curtis was educated as a lawyer and left the corporate world to embrace life in Colorado with his wife and two sons.
Curtis is the author of THE FOUR BELLS, a novel of The Great War, which is the product of extensive historical research, including long walks through the fields of Flanders, where much of the book's action is set. His second novel, ANGELS AND BANDITS, takes his protagonists into The Battle of Britain. Curtis’ third novel is set on a Mississippi Riverboat prior to the Civil War.
A lover of history, particularly American history and the World Wars, Curtis reviews historical fiction for the Historical Novels Review and more than 100 of his published reviews and short takes on historical novels can be found on his website: brodiecurtis.com.
Author Links:
Website: www.brodiecurtis.com
Twitter / X: https://x.com/BrodieCurtis4
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/curtisauthor/
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Brodie-Curtis/author/B07QSCF8Z1
Tour hosted by: The Coffee Pot Book Club
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