"I could only see his hands, and with that, the hint of who he might be that was hidden from view..." About a week ago I attended my son's final wind symphony concert in high school. He was part of his school's award-winning band for four years and this was his final performance. He's the younger of my two children and I was already in the midst of the weeks-long crying jag that comes with seeing … [Read More...]
The Willard
AVAILABLE ON AMAZONPreserving the past will be the key to protecting the future.
Edward Chase is the ultimate insider, the gatekeeper to a Washington, D.C. institution. He’s the concierge at the Willard Hotel where the well-heeled and well-connected come to be seen in proximity to power, two blocks from the White House. From his privileged vantage point he has watched history unfold, from Andrew Jackson’s inauguration to the Kennedy funeral to Michelle Obama’s garden. His timelessness is required for the job he has to do. Hotel guest Catherine Parker has just walked into the ornate lobby unaware she’s been selected for a critical date with destiny. Her arrival sets in motion a series of events that should have happened 151 years ago, on the night Abraham Lincoln was shot. Journeys like this one are the linchpin of Chase’s mysterious existence, and they forever change the lives of the guests he chooses for each important mission through the annals of American history. As tears open up in the fabric of history, it will be up to these everyday citizens to ensure the original timeline is not disturbed because the consequences could be catastrophic. Chase will travel with them to the past in order to preserve the present, and Catherine Parker is first on his list.
"Good morning," he says to the businesswoman. "Welcome to the Willard."
The Hunley Letters — Coming in 2017
With the Civil War in its third devastating year and the Confederacy being strangled by a Union blockade, new hope was on the horizon founded on a mysterious boat that could slip beneath the waves and take the enemy by surprise. Called the H.L. Hunley, she was a doomed craft, dragging nearly everyone who dared to test her down to a watery grave. A final attempt would be made by a courageous captain who hailed from the North and whose only tie to the land of cotton was the young woman he loved in Mobile. Their wartime romance carried him through the horrors of Shiloh all the way to Charleston Harbor on a cold February night. Through their correspondence, a picture emerges of a man and a woman bound together by the tenuous strings of an antebellum courtship and torn apart by war and by the differences in how they viewed the world around them. What I’m Reading Now
I'm a sucker for historic fiction and if it's set around the Civil War or World War II it's pretty hard for me to pass it up. The story here is very raw and immediate. With characters enduring the bombing of London and the siege of Malta, it's just uncomfortable enough to make the reader glad to put it down for a few minutes. I only managed to walk away for those few minutes, though, before I picked it up again. I highly recommend this one.