After years of writing contemporary mysteries, award-winning author Saralyn Richard is turning to the past - and to Galveston - for the story she says she has wanted to tell since she was 15. 

 Her new novel, “Port of Destiny,” is set in 1905, five years after the Great Storm devastated the island. Galveston is rebuilding, growing, and reclaiming its place as a major port, but beneath its prosperous surface lies a world of immigrant boarding houses, brothels, jails, muddy canals, and dangerous secrets. 

 Richard describes the city of that era as “progressive, high falutin’, and seedy,” a combination that made it an ideal setting for a novel blending history, mystery, and romance. 

 The seed for the story was planted when two Ball High School English teachers, Mari Allmond and Midge Pennington, encouraged the then 15-year-old Richard to become a writer. Their confidence, she said, ignited an “unquenchable passion.” Around the same time, she learned a secret about her grandfather, who had died when she was four. 

 “I knew immediately that this story belonged in a book,” Richard said, “and I would be the one to write it.” 

 That promise took decades to fulfill. Richard began the manuscript years ago while teaching English and had written more than 100 pages on her first Macintosh when the computer crashed, and the work was lost. 

 The story continued to haunt her as she built a writing career that eventually included seven mysteries and a children’s book. 

 With “Port of Destiny,” her ninth book and first historical novel, Richard decided it was “now or never.” She said the research and writing reunited her with her family and “hometown of old.” 

 The novel follows three Eastern European immigrants - Rosa, Nathan, and Chana - whose hopes for freedom and new beginnings become entangled with two disappearances, a murder, and conflicting romantic obligations. 

 Rosa arrived in Galveston with her family before the storm. Her father established the House of Fashion, a fashionable millinery business that survived the hurricane, though both the shop and the family home were damaged. By 1905, Rosa has witnessed death, suffering, and the island’s stubborn determination to recover. 

 When her father mysteriously vanishes and her brother later disappears, Rosa must go to work in the family shop, a role for which she is unprepared. She turns for help to Nathan, her brother’s closest friend. 

 Nathan has resettled in Galveston from New York City. A grocery peddler who dreams of owning a store, he sees possibility in the recovering port and forms friendships easily. 

 As he and Rosa search for her brother, their feelings deepen - just as a woman is found at the docks with her throat slit. 

 The investigation takes them through sharply divided layers of island life, from respectable businesses and affluent homes to boarding houses, brothels, jails, and the treacherous waterfront. For immigrants trying to establish themselves in America, becoming involved in a police investigation carries risks beyond the danger of the crime itself. 

 Chana’s story begins in a small Russian village amid poverty, anti-Semitism, and increasingly violent pogroms. Readers follow her journey to Hamburg and aboard a passenger ship to Galveston. 

 Bold, independent, and inclined toward activism, she hopes to use her sewing and teaching skills to help others. She also brings secrets and obligations that alter the relationships among the three immigrants. 

 Richard calls the resulting romantic complication not a triangle but a “quadrangle.” 

 “There’s attraction and flirtation, and even love, but forces outside of the lovers’ control interfere with the normal evolution of relationships,” she said. “The romance becomes as much of a mystery as the murder.” 

 Richard initially intended to set the story during the 1900 hurricane but moved it to 1905 after recognizing that other books had covered the disaster itself. The later date allowed her to portray a city in the act of reinventing itself. 

 Workers were raising some buildings as much as 17 feet as part of an enormous engineering project to elevate the island. Canals had been dug to obtain the slurry used as fill, leaving muddy, slippery boardwalks that could be especially hazardous at night. 

 Debris still littered streets traveled by horse-drawn carriages, while vagrants and transient workers added to the rough atmosphere of the port. 

 Yet Galveston society was also flourishing again. East End mansions were being repaired or rebuilt. 

 Parties, theater outings, charity balls, and holiday celebrations had resumed, keeping wealthy customers coming to Rosa’s House of Fashion - and women concerned about walking the streets could purchase long hatpins that doubled as concealed weapons. 

 

 One of the novel’s authentic settings is the Mollie Walters brothel at 26th and Market, a building that still stands. Richard toured it during the 2026 Galveston Historical Foundation Homes Tour, helping her describe the property and its proprietor, who appears as a minor character. 

 Recreating the period required extensive research. At the Galveston and Texas History Center at Rosenberg Library, Richard examined census documents, city directories, newspapers, and advertisements. 

 She also consulted Galveston Historical Foundation resources, Congregation B’nai Israel artifacts, histories of the red-light district, and books about the Galveston immigration movement. 

 One real-life figure in the novel is Rabbi Henry Cohen, remembered for helping people of many faiths and backgrounds. As Galveston sought able-bodied immigrants to assist in rebuilding, Cohen greeted passenger ships and helped newcomers find employment and housing. 

 “It was an honor to depict Rabbi Cohen in the book,” Richard said. 

 Her research deepened her appreciation for the courage required to leave behind family, language, culture, and an entire way of life with no guarantee that America would offer something better. Most immigrants, she concluded, were not seeking adventure but escaping hunger, persecution, and societies that offered little hope of advancement. 

 Although the book addresses immigration, prejudice, religious persecution, and women’s independence, Richard said she did not set out to comment on present-day politics. The parallels emerged after she had told the 1905 story. 

 Her mystery-writing experience helped her build the novel’s suspense through clues, suspects, red herrings, foreshadowing, and cliffhangers, but the murder investigation takes a secondary role to the historical and romantic elements. 

 Richard hopes Galveston readers will recognize the island’s tradition of meeting adversity with resilience, ingenuity, and cooperation. 

 “It’s a small island with a big heart - and my definition of paradise,” she said.