Local author Rachel Callaghan has published her debut novel “Under Water.”
The book is entirely set in Buck County today and during the Civil War era. The leading publishing trade magazine called the debut, “an engaging epic about loss, loneliness, and desire that perfectly encapsulates relatable human struggles.”
The story was inspired by a gruesome discovery dredged out of the lake during the renovation of her pre-Revolutionary farmhouse in Buck County. The Civil War era story centers an abolitionist, an escaped slave, and an Irish immigrant struggling to maintain a Pennsylvania farm.
A former ER doctor who circled the globe at age 21, Callaghan has pulled from a rich life for her fiction. But she never thought she’d get a chance to write a novel when she was stricken with a stage-IV lymphoma.
“In 2010, I worked a full but abnormally exhausting day, went home for the weekend, and on Monday was in the ER,” she said of her time fighting cancer. It took 10 years to beat the cancer, but the publication of her book is the ultimate triumph.
Prior to writing her novel, she published several short stories and essays, one of which was awarded honorable mention in Best American Essays. Empower Press has contracted Callaghan for a three-book deal. Her book is available on Amazon.com or her website RachelWrites.com.
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