The Sea Child by Linda Wilgus - a dramatic adventure in Cornwall

In this captivating historical novel, a grieving widow is drawn back to Cornwall, the location of her earliest memories, where she expects a quiet life but is drawn into friendship with a gang of smugglers. Impoverished after her naval husband’s death and unexpectedly touched by scandal, Isabel Henley flees London for a rustic cottage in Helston after her husband dies at Trafalgar on the HMS Neptune, leaving nothing but debts. 

She has never lived without servants and does not even know how to light a fire to make tea but, luckily, her landlady is sympathetic and imparts some basic housekeeping skills. As importantly, Mrs. Dowling witnessed her arrival in Helston as a child, nearly twenty years earlier. Isabel knows she was adopted by Admiral and Mrs. Farnworth but she has never heard the story from a witness:

“I saw you that day,” Mrs. Dowling says. “I saw you when you first came out. I was standing at the window and I saw you come up the road. You were barefoot and very small. Small for your age – that’s what we all said later; the girl was small for her age. You wore only a shift, though they say it was of the finest cotton. Your hair was darker than it is now.”

She goes on to explain that some locals believe Isabel was brought by the legendary Sea Bucca, a merman “with the skin of conger eel and seaweed for hair . . . . Some say you are his daughter.”

Isabel finds this superstition unnerving but perhaps it does explain her fascination with the sea. Her new life is solitary but she appreciates the proximity to the sea; at least, until she is warned by an officious lieutenant from the Revenue Service that there are dangerous smugglers nearby. He tells her proudly if he catches anyone smuggling, he won’t wait for a trial but will hang them as traitors. Isabel finds him repellent but she’s certainly not on the side of the smugglers – until the captain of the local smugglers is wounded and brought to her cottage in the middle of the night. This is what happens when you rent a cottage without a lock!

The beauty of the Cornish coast captivates both Isabel and the reader, and we both know she should stay quietly in her cottage and not allow herself to befriend a smuggler. However, part of Isabel’s appeal is her sense of adventure and her determination not to be constrained by other people’s expectations. Wilgus has created an intrepid character in Isabel, capable of friendship with the low and the mighty as she tries to rebuild her life. The story is dramatic and very satisfying.

This is my third book for the Intrepid Reader’s 2026 Historical Fiction Challenge. It’s one of the historical novels of 2026 I was eager to read and it was even better than anticipated! I can’t decide if it is meant as an homage to du Maurier’s Frenchman’s Creek or whether it is simply impossible to write about smugglers in Cornwall without conjuring echoes of that book. I look forward to discussing this question with others who have read both.

Title: The Sea Child
Author: Linda Wilgus
Publication: Ballantine Books, hardcover, 2026
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: 19th century
Source: Library