Set on the St. Lawrence River and Lake Champlain during the War of 1812, Rips' 1812 Overture follows the wrenchingly difficult lives of:

Cat, a female fishing and hunting guide and expert sailor seeking an understanding of her own womanhood in a ruthless man's world who tries to discover who and what to love in a world torn by war.

Jake Gentry, an escaped indentured servant who steals his wealthy master's safe and flees north to visions of freedom, a man of scant worldly experience who discovers his own capacity to lead in the most famous ship-building race in North American history and whose love for Cat drives him against unthinkable odds and danger.

Everett O'Toole, an old man and Rips' hero, owner of an island sanctuary, Cat's grandfather. He is a riverman of wit and comic wisdom who knows when to act and how to survive using his deep knowledge of the wild.

Donovan, a Hartford, CT newspaperman who falls in love with Cat for her embodiment of innocence and natural grace. He is a brooding intellectual compelled to cover a stupid war that he despises while discovering the vast beauty of the north country wilderness and the grit of the people who live there. But he learns the most about Cat and his own vulnerability in a bear hunt that turns to spring blizzard where he and Cat are lost and face death alone together.

Simone, a beguiling French spy who teaches Jake about love, loyalty, and courage.

Blade, a Native North American carpenter and Jake's chief assistant in the building of the 37-gun frigate H.M.S. Confiance, who teaches Jake about honesty and commitment in both love and war with comic wisdom and unswerving loyalty.

A complete cast of quirky secondary characters and villains--guides, sports (the name for people being guided), soldiers, sailors, generals, captains, carpenters--some good, some awful, some funny, some ferocious, all of them lively and richly detailed.

Rips' 1812 Overture is set during war with major scenes of famous battles, but it is above all a book about people and propelled by character. It includes a vast assortment of nautical scenes ranging from tall ships in battle to small skiffs sailing in torrential storms, an odyssey through war and a beautiful ever-changing wilderness.

Rips' 1812 Overture opens by introducing readers to Jake Gentry, an urban indentured servant who is on the run after stealing his master's cash-filled safe. The safe, originally designed by Jake for his rapacious boss and ingeniously equipped with a boobytrap feature, is soon perceived by readers to belong justifiably to Jake, whose unpaid toil and self-taught engineering skills have been rewarded with only his master's abuse. Jake's flight from his inexhaustible master is temporarily suspended when a wizened old St. Lawrence River man, Everett, helps Jake escape dangerous river currents for sanctuary on Everett's island. There Jake meets the old man's granddaughter Cat, an alluring and skilled river guide. Together Cat and Everett teach Jake to sail, fish, hunt, and ply the magnificent wilds. Jake is introduced to the mysteries, dangers, and love of natural beauty partly in the form of vast northern landscapes, partly through Cat whose vitality and flawed beauty attract Jake far more than the stolen money that continuously haunts him.

While the safe's theft propels the early action as Jake tries to elude capture by his former master, he is trapped by both the allure and treachery of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Champlain region torn by the War of 1812. Seduced by dreams of being a river guide, Jake stumbles into the war and is snared by the commanders' insatiable need for men with strength, skills, and a capacity to lead--qualities his enemies covet in Jake and which he eventually discovers in himself.

The novel includes major scenes in two celebrated battles during the War of 1812, the infamous Battle of Chateauguay, a comic opera of ineptitude and brutal suffering featuring Jake and Cat serving as scouts for a large but bedraggled American army routed by 500 noisy French Canadians.

Jake survives only to be "impressed" (captured and drafted into service) by a British schooner where he begins to ply his skills as a carpenter and first discovers his capacity to lead men. He is taken to Isle Aux Noix on the Richelieu River where he is assigned as ship's carpenter for the 800-ton British frigate H.M.S Confiance (seen on the book cover above), one of the most astonishing boat-building projects in history. Here at the edges of Lake Champlain, Jake confronts the greatest challenges of his life, working for obsessed and cruel commanders to construct a massive ship while spying for the Americans in preparation for the Battle of Plattsburgh, a savage confrontation between two powerful fleets and the turning point of a strange and crazy war.

Some of the most exciting scenes are those in which nature batters everyone, friend and foe. Whether Owens is describing a storm that mercilessly batters the British boatworks or the dangers faced in sailing in unpredictable winds and waters, his prose is crisp and vivid, his grasp of nautical drama harrowing and richly detailed. In one scene where Cat is lost in a deadly blizzard, Owens' spins prose that reveals the stunning power of nature to overwhelm men and women beyond endurance.

The novel's climax at the Battle of Plattsburgh places Jake, Cat, Everett, Donovan, and Jake's loyal crew of ship's carpenters in grave danger. Jake sails into battle on the great ship he helped build, trying at turns to sabotage the Confiance yet patch it together as it is torn to slivers by the U.S.S. Saratoga in one of the most famous clashes of U.S. naval history. Facing death and dismemberment as cannon fire shreds his ship, It is a pivotal scene, based on fact, yet seen through unrelenting focus of Jake as he fights for his life in the murderous wreckage of the Confiance.

Rips' 1812 Overture is action-packed and boasts a cast of magnetic characters who charm, amuse, chill, and beguile. It is lyrical in its descriptions of nature's forces. Owens demonstrates a keen skill at dialogue, crafting small illuminating dramas of seemingly ordinary conversations, providing comic relief and welcome respites from the dangers threatening everyone as they stumble and and struggle through one of the strangest wars in North American history.