Welcome to the website for Robert W. Spencer, author of PROSPECTS, Mining Maine for Riches and The Spinster’s Hope Chest, both historical novels set in Southern Maine.

Robert is a writer of historical fiction and a Maine resident. He lives with his wife in a converted mill building in Waterford, where he can be found writing, reading, gardening, and volunteering with the public library and historical society.

You can purchase Robert’s novels on Amazon or through Maine Authors Publishing. Find them on Goodreads.com to leave a review!

Available now! Prospects – a new historical novel set in Waterford. Subscribe to the blog for updates!

Canadian miner Clarence Leslie Potter, inspired by the story of tourmaline gems found in Maine in 1820*, moves to Oxford County in 1897 to make his fortune working the pegmatite mines. He
finds himself immersed in a welcoming community of native Mainers. One exception is widow, Aphia Stevens, an herbalist who is tormented by the demons of her past. She makes life difficult for Potter, his new wife from Winchester, Massachusetts and the family of successful dress maker Lizzie Millett. The story takes place with a backdrop of the Maine mining scene at the turn of the twentieth century.

*Cover image of PROSPECTS is a photograph of The Primus, first tourmaline found in West
Paris, ME two hundred years ago.

Click on the cover to read an excerpt from Prospects.

Prospects, Mining Maine for Riches is now available at all five Sherman’s Bookstores in Maine
(Portland, Freeport, Damariscotta, Boothbay Harbor and Bar Harbor) as well as Bridgton books
in Bridgton, ME and The Tribune Bookshop in Norway, ME, and the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel, Maine.