Lanterns on the Skeena

In the spring of 1919 on British Columbia's Skeena River, a strike idles the cannery lines-and death rides the tide in the wake of influenza. Ailsa Penhaligon, a beekeeper-chemist raised on the docks, can buy the sick a few precious hours with a lantern ward of ash, honey, and breath. To ferry forbidden medicine past company patrols, she forges a "convenient" engagement with strike leader Theo Sorsa, a quiet boatwright who reads tides like blueprints.
What begins as a ruse turns into a partnership built at thresholds: doorjambs and dock edges, picket lines and parish steps. As the town fights for wages, housing, and dignity-and as the river keeps its own counsel-Ailsa and Theo must decide what truth their vow can carry when the peace arrives and the watching begins.
Historical fiction, labor & class, romantic suspense.