Carter Barnwell, the protagonist in The Home Guard, is twelve years old when his world is turned on its head on November 7, 1861. As the Prologue states, “he knew best the streams and marshes of the Lowcountry. Winds and tides were as much a part of him as his fingerprints.” As with children in all wars, he is a victim of the inability of adults, those he loves and looks up to, to settle their differences peacefully. On the morning of November 7, 1861, he awakes in his bedroo

When I left you last week I was on the cusp of literary stardom with my first novel, Bethesda’s Child. I had what I had been assured was a very good story, one of the top literary agents in New York had signed me up as a client, and the timing of the genetic science, which anticipated issues and tensions springing to world consciousness a few years later when Dolly the Sheep was created (invented?) seemed perfect. All the elements had fallen into place for a best seller with

In last week’s blog, a Wizard in the form of my youngest son, Carter, helped me take the first step along the road I am still traveling. Ironically, the next step on that road also involved a son, the middle one, and soccer. My copy of A Dare on the Bridge stayed on a preferred corner of my desk, and every time I saw it I got the urge to write something. I took that as a good sign. The urge to write needed to become irresistible, and it did. I read in the local newspaper, the