A Stone from the River Rhine Available Now

My novel, A Stone from the River Rhine, is now available at HistriaBooks.com, Amazon, and your local independent bookstore.

Two journeys. One river. A promise that won’t let go.

In 1751, Johannes Christian Welde drifted down the Rhine on a timber raft, boarded a ship, and left everything he knew for the uncertainty of America. Two and a half centuries later, his descendant Natalie Welde flies the opposite direction, crossing the same distance in hours and feeling the pull of history.

Natalie’s trip isn’t just about ancestry. It’s for her brother, Billy, a man of sharp humor and quiet heartbreak. Billy asks Natalie for one last thing: a worry stone from the river Johannes once traveled.

With her husband, Hank, Natalie boards a Rhine cruise, retracing Johannes’s route in reverse. Where Johannes faced storms, sickness, and peril, Natalie moves through calm waters. Grief has its own currents. As past and present run side by side, Natalie must reckon with family legacy, unkept promises, and the fragile ways we carry one another home.

Some journeys change history. Others change the people who survive them.

Preview the Book

About the Author

Rita Welty Bourke

Rita Welty Bourke is the author of A Stone from the River Rhine, Islomanes of Cumberland Island and Kylie’s Ark: The Making of a Veterinarian, a Kirkus’ Best Indie Book of the Year Selection. She has published over forty works of fiction and non-fiction in literary magazines including The North American Review, Cimarron Review, Louisiana Literature, Shenandoah, Witness, and the Black Warrior Review. One of her stories, Gunnison Beach, has been included in an anthology entitled “Naked” compiled by Susan Zakin. Five have been nominated for Pushcart prizes. Read more »

 

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