Coming Soon
What’s next? I’m currently working on Volumes 2 and 3 of my Civil War trilogy Children of the Storm, based on the true story of my great-grandfather. Volume 1, Storm Coming, published in May 2017, introduces Alexander Swaney, a young farmer in southwest Pennsylvania, who, along with his pastor Harrison Hagans, answers Lincoln’s call for troops to save the Union. The pair join the Kelley Lancers, a Union cavalry company formed in Morgantown, Virginia, just over the state border from their little Pennsylvania town. Together they face all the hardships of war, and their close friendship is threatened by a dark secret. The novel is set against the backdrop of Virginia’s own mini–civil war of 1861, when the western Virginia counties refuse to join the Confederacy and instead secede from the rest of Virginia. The resulting campaign in the rugged Allegheny Mountains of western Virginia is a little known but important part of the Civil War and features such later stars as Robert E. Lee, George McClellan, and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.
Volume 2, Caught in a Storm, is coming in 2019. Alexander Swaney becomes an orderly for General John Buford, accompanying him during crucial battles leading up to the all-important Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Together they face injury, illness, betrayal, and death.
In Volume 3, Out of the Storm, coming in 2020, Alexander, having served past his term of enlistment and wearied by the years of conflict, tries to make his way home to the woman he loves and hopes to marry. Many obstacles block his homeward path.