The Matriarch of Ruins

by Edison McDaniels

“…great pacing and vivid characterization, with a gift for writing convincing dialogue. Original and unsettling.” — FG Cottam, author of The Magdalena Curse and The Colony 

Husbands and wives. Sons and daughters. Soldiers and surgeons. Free men and slaves. Widows and ghosts.

  It is summer, 1863, and the war has come home to the Gamble farm in Southern Pennsylvania. With her husband buried under the willow tree in the back yard, newly-widowed Purdy Gamble must cope with losing him all over again when a rebel surgeon conscripts her farm for use as a Confederate hospital. Hannah, Purdy’s daughter, disappears into the chaos of war to chase her own ghosts, both imaginary and real. And then there are the twins Loli and Coal, just fourteen. One, struck dumb by a mule kick at age five, will find a disturbing peace amid the flames of war. The other will twice save a man’s life, unearthing a family secret in the process—a secret at once as alive as warm flesh and as dead as cold bones moldering under the ground.

 The Matriarch of Ruins is a haunting story of lost love, moral dilemmas, and the ruin of war.

Available in bookstores and online.

ISBN 978-1-937997-66-3

Ebook Edition, $5.99 U.S.            Trade Paper Edition, $14.95 U.S.

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Not One Among Them Whole

by Edison McDaniels

“An amazingly talented writer … Not One Among Them Whole is a magnificently harrowing trip into the bloody horrors of the battle of Gettysburg, populated with unforgettable characters and written with stunning precision and beauty.” — Taylor Polites, author of The Rebel Wife

“At first glance it resembles The Killer Angels and Cold Mountain — and its artistry rivals those great novels. But it explores a deeper heart of darkness than even the shambles exhausted surgeons have to deal with after Gettysburg.”  — David Poyer, author of A Country of Our Own and The Shiloh Project

It is the summer of 1863, and the greatest battle ever fought on American soil is in full tilt. Southern Pennsylvania has become one great grinding stone and thousands of dead or dying are its grist. In this tilted landscape, reputations are made, careers are ruined, and two armies are intent on killing one another. Yet opportunity is everywhere.

 For the privates and officers who fight the battle, salvation or damnation is just a bullet away. For the surgeons laboring over the wounded, opportunity knocks at the bloody tables, where the price of a man’s life is all too often an arm or a leg. The cost to the surgeons, however, will be even higher.

For one undertaker in particular, the dead are a canvas, and his ability to make a body reflect the living individual is uncanny. For Jupiter Jones, the burgeoning dead are the opportunity. And finally, for one teenage slave, alive only because his father had the courage to bury him, opportunity comes in the form of a ten-year-old boy with a creel and one shoe, who may or may not be a ghost …

 In the summer of 1863, humanity itself is under siege. What happens amid the carnage and human flotsam of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, will be unholy, unnerving, and all but unbearable, with only this certain: not one among them will escape unscathed.

Available in bookstores and online.

ISBN 978-1-482505-16-0

Ebook Edition, $4.99 U.S.            Trade Paper Edition, $14.95 U.S.

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Waterwoman

by Lenore Hart

“Pure as the waters of the pre-industrial Chesapeake … utterly convincing and beautifully sensual. You feel the shell cuts, the pull of the nets.” — Baltimore Sun

“Hart reaches surprising emotional depths with her exploration of sibling rivalry, familial commitment, and social taboos.”  — Publisher’s Weekly

“A gripping story with an admirable, complex heroine … The love and rivalry between the sisters will strike a chord with teens.” — Booklist

“Like the watermen that people her novel, Hart has learned the tools of her craft.” — Salisbury NC Post

“… Hart creates a believable world where tragedy does not always equal hopelessness, a place where you don’t always get what you want, but if you’re strong, you find reasons to go on living anyway.” — Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

Even as a child, plain, boyish Annie Revels had everyone’s role figured out. Everyone’s, that is, except her own. Her sickly mother needed to be taken care of. Her little sister Rebecca was beautiful, where Annie was not. Her father was a waterman, a free-looking life Annie envied and could’ve had, if only she’d been born a son.

Tiny, remote Revels Island, a barrier island off the Eastern Shore, knows nothing of the partying, gin-soaked Roaring Twenties, which grip the rest of the country. The family depends on the coastal waters to make a living, and tragedy is always only a bad storm away. As Annie notes, “In order to live on the Shore, you need to understand that good weather always follows bad.”

But when her father dies, suddenly it falls to Annie to take his place aboard the oyster boat and support what’s left of the family. Out there, she finds the only life she could ever really fit into: being a waterman. Until one day, she meets Nathan…

Available in bookstores and online.

ISBN 978-1-937997-58-8

Ebook Edition, $4.99 U.S.    Trade Paper Edition, $12.95 U.S.

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Now available as an audiobook!  Read by Julie Yelen.  Six entrancing hours for a very reasonable price!  Order it here.

 

The Only Thing to Fear

by David Poyer

“A flight of the historical imagination that will leave readers dazzled.” — Thomas Fleming

It is the apocalyptic spring of 1945. Navy Reserve lieutenant John F. Kennedy, convalescing from action in the Pacific, is transferred to President Franklin Roosevelt’s personal staff. But Kennedy finds Washington is more than cocktail parties, easy tail, and press conferences when Fleet Admiral Leahy assigns him an undercover mission – a deadly race to stop a possible assassin in the White House.

With the help of Lauren Wolfe, beautiful actress and FDR admirer, and Secret Service head Mike Reilly, Kennedy must turn detective, as the clock ticks down to the fateful moment when a shadowy traitor will attempt to alter the course of history.

ISBN 978-1-937997-68-7

Ebook Edition, $4.99 U.S.            Trade Paper Edition, $19.95 U.S.

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