{"product_id":"where-two-waters-meet-ricardo-gomez-9798312425963","title":"Where Two Waters Meet: A Historical novel of the early days of Port Townsend, WA","description":"\u003cp\u003ePort Townsend, 1851. Where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets Puget Sound, a schooner drops anchor in waters the S'Klallam have fished for millennia. The settlers aboard see an empty harbor waiting for civilization. Chief Chetzemoka sees something else entirely: a future he can glimpse but cannot prevent.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eElizabeth Morrison arrives with the first wave, a Boston widow seeking reinvention in the territories. She builds a customs brokerage, accumulates property, raises two daughters-and keeps a cipher journal recording everything the official histories will erase. The treaties broken before the ink dries. The village burned to make room for mansions. The systematic dispossession dressed up as progress.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eChetzemoka chooses accommodation over resistance, signing away his people's land in exchange for promises of fishing rights and reserved territory. It's a gamble on the long game-that words on paper might matter to someone, someday, when circumstances change. His son Joseph inherits that burden, waiting decades for the moment when the settlers' certainties finally crack.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat moment comes in 1890, when the railroad boom that was supposed to make Port Townsend a great city collapses into economic ruin. The speculators flee. Property values crash. And in the wreckage, possibilities emerge that didn't exist before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpanning forty-four years of territorial history, \u003ci\u003eWhere Two Waters Meet\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of American expansion through the eyes of those who built it and those who survived it. Based on documented events and featuring the real S'Klallam leader Chetzemoka-known to settlers as \"the Duke of York\"-this novel explores what happens when one community's prosperity requires another's destruction, and what it costs to remember what everyone else prefers to forget.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe S'Klallam people-the \"Strong People\"-never disappeared. Their nations persist on their traditional territories today.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor readers of \u003ci\u003eBarkskins\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCloud Cuckoo Land\u003c\/i\u003e, this is a story of those who fight to hold onto their place in a changing world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Ricardo Gomez\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798312425963\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 06\/29\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 268\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.80lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.56d","brand":"Ricardo Gomez","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48066646507775,"sku":"9798312425963","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_0b5dce26-775c-4ea7-97b8-1a1f9e217139.jpg?v=1768679652","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/where-two-waters-meet-ricardo-gomez-9798312425963","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}