Joan Martelli
The Widow Van Gogh
A literary author site presenting Joan Martelli and her work, with an elegant new focus on The Widow Van Gogh.
Featured Book
The Widow Van Gogh
The Widow Van Gogh is presented here as the next featured work by Joan Martelli, with a visual and editorial frame suited to a deeply researched historical narrative.
The title points toward Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, the woman whose life, judgment, and persistence helped carry Vincent van Gogh from private grief into public legacy. This page is ready for final jacket copy, publication details, preorder links, endorsements, and event announcements.
The Widow Van Gogh
Author
Joan Martelli
Award-winning journalist, television news magazine producer, and author.
Joan Martelli is an award-winning journalist and television news magazine producer with more than twenty years experience working for ABC, CBS and PBS. Born in Queens, New York, she is a graduate of Dartmouth College and a Harvard Nieman Fellow. She currently lives in The Netherlands with her husband, Jos Flury.
The Law of Storms is her first book.
Reader Response
What readers said about The Law of Storms
The Law of Storms is a riveting page turner. I binge read it in one sitting because it was impossible to put it down.
Roberta Baskin
You obviously researched long and thoroughly into the archives of accounts by survivors of those terrible disasters.
Stan Waterman, diving legend and Emmy award-winning cinematographer
Do pick up this book if you love history, the ocean or ship wrecks because this book is about to take you on an interesting adventure.
Lauren McArdle
Well researched and beautifully written account of the sinking of the Rhone.
Amazon reader review
Previous Book
The Law of Storms
A non-fiction book that reads like a novel, telling the true story of the RMS Rhone, her rival captains, and a devastating 1867 hurricane.
On October 29, 1867, a powerful Category 3 hurricane made a direct hit on the Virgin Islands, sinking one of the world’s most luxurious passenger ships, the Rhone.
The Law of Storms is the fascinating true story of that ship, her two rival captains, and the critical role that both luck and skill played in their lives. It is also a riveting survival story and the account of a series of natural disasters: a hurricane, a yellow fever outbreak, an earthquake, and a tsunami all taking place in less than a month.
Author and award-winning journalist Joan Martelli dived into unique and difficult to access first-hand resource material to create a complete and captivating narrative of one of the world’s most dramatic shipwrecks.
Order The Law of Storms
From the Archives
People in the Rhone story
Robert Woolward
The charismatic first captain of the RMS Rhone, remembered as humorous, lucky, and an excellent navigator with experience navigating around storms.
John Bailey
A 16-year-old ship’s boy from Southampton whose survival story became part of the historical record after the Rhone struck Black Rock Point.
Frederick Woolley
Captain of the Rhone during her tenth and final voyage, whose decisions during the hurricane of October 29, 1867 ultimately led to disaster.
The RMS Rhone
Today the Rhone rests in relatively shallow water near Tortola in the British Virgin Islands and remains one of the Caribbean’s most popular dive sites.
Contact
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