Ancestry, Archives, and Acadian Folklore: The Inspiration Behind A SEA OF SPECTRES

Nancy Taber

What to do with an article about an 18th century ancestor during the Acadian Expulsion, an almanac excerpt about a 19th century bank cleaner (possibly) turned thief, and research about 20th and 21st century military women? Blend it all into a historical novel with three protagonists and three timelines. Throw in a phantom ship, premonitions, and stir. Serve with the following description: On the choppy coastline of Prince Edward Island, an ocean-phobic police detective evades the deadly lure of a phantom ship by delving into her family’s history and harnessing her matrilineal powers of premonition.

Okay, so it wasn’t quite that straight-forward. Now for the long version of the inspiration behind A SEA OF SPECTRES, which begins when my ocean-phobic detective, Raina, starts pulling the threads of a missing-person case. The case leads her on a search to understand how uncanny abilities have impacted her ancestral line. As the novel progresses, the narrative shifts to Celeste, whose abilities tempt her to take back what she considers rightfully hers in 1864, and then to Madeleine, who uses her abilities in an effort to keep her family safe in 1758.

Learning about women forgotten by history and imagining their lives is endlessly fascinating to me. My story ideas are almost always sparked by a historical fact about a woman who lived decades or centuries ago. If I say to myself, “you’ve got to be kidding me, I can’t believe this is true,” then I have a premise worth pursuing. I’m also intrigued by folklore and myth, in that the mystical is often hiding just under the surface of everyday life. 

Several years ago, my mother sent me an article about my ancestors’ experiences during the Seven Years War in the 1758 Acadian Expulsion from Île St. Jean (modern day Prince Edward Island) to France. The focus of the article was on a man, with only brief mention of his wife, Madeleine. And I thought, I can’t have that—Madeleine deserves to be the heroine of her own story. I asked myself, to what lengths would Madeleine go to protect her children? 

Celeste came into the novel when my father asked everyone in our family to enter a contest for an 1864 PEI almanac so he could get one for my mother. I somehow ended up winning two copies. When I flipped through one, I read an entry about the case of two bank cleaners accused of stealing bank notes. I developed Celeste’s character around the question, what would cause her to consider becoming a thief? 

Raina is a compilation of my research about (para)military institutions, which examines how women in male-dominated workplaces negotiate a culture steeped in masculinity. I wondered, how would she navigate the rational and the fantastical in her police work and her family life? 

In the novel, Madeleine, Celeste, and Raina are related, but Madeleine is the only character from my own matrilineal line. When I was writing the novel, as far as I knew, no one in my extended family had actual powers of premonition so, to bring in the fantastical elements, I asked myself, if Acadian folklore were true, how might it affect my characters? I’m enthralled with the magic underlying cultural legends, such as the well-known PEI legend of a phantom ship blazing on the horizon, and what people believe to be truth or myth, and how that effects their daily life and the way they perceive the world. Soon after my novel was published, a relative told me that she and possibly others have the intuitive ability to see hints of the future, so maybe my fiction is closer to the truth than I had thought. 

At its core, my fiction is inspired by how the lives of women are connected through the past, across contemporary times, and into the future. In every time period, there have always been diverse women who rebelled against societal restrictions and roles. Their stories are the ones I want to tell, to draw attention to their courage and how their actions have contributed to the gains of women today, which contribute to those in the future. Despite often facing backlash and backsliding, women continue to fight for equity. 

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Nancy Taber is a university professor, fiction author, and a former military officer who served as a Sea King helicopter Tactical Coordinator. Part of her job once included leaping out of a helicopter into the ocean. Now, most of her job includes sitting at a computer, drinking massive amounts of coffee, and dropping her characters into wild and sometimes weird circumstances. To learn more about Nancy, find buy links, sign up for her newsletter, and follow her on social media, go to https://www.nancytaber.ca. 

A SEA OF SPECTRES

On the choppy coastline of Prince Edward Island, an ocean-phobic detective evades the deadly lure of a phantom ship by delving into her family’s history and harnessing her matrilineal powers of premonition.

Raina is an accomplished detective working against smugglers and traffickers on PEI, and she’s eager for an imminent promotion. But there’s a catch: she has to go work on a Coast Guard ship for a week. And Raina, though Island born and raised, loathes the sea. When she gets too close to it, the phantom ship starts calling to her, and the lure of its deadly cold flames threatens to overwhelm her.

When she starts pulling the threads of a missing-person case, she discovers how Doiron women’s uncanny abilities have impacted her ancestral line: Madeleine’s powers tried to keep her family safe during the Expulsion of the Acadians in 1758; Celeste’s tempted her to take back what was rightfully hers in 1864. Generation after generation of women have had to reckon with what their abilities can and can’t do to protect their families.

And now it’s Raina’s turn. Is she strong enough to carry her family’s legacy? Or will that legacy carry her out into the burning sea of spectres? Debut novelist Nancy Taber deftly braids three timelines together, each as engaging and fully drawn as the other. With whip-smart contemporary dialogue and moving, evocative historical writing, she brings to life three different generations of Acadian women in a riveting, crackling, chilling mystery.

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