I have to admit that I’m not usually a fan of historical fiction that takes place in time of war. Battle scenes and descriptions of armory bore me, but I decided to give Luke Jackson’s book, The Wrong Choice, a read mainly because I’ve been researching the Civil War a lot lately for a project of my own. I thought reading something else from that genre might help or inspire me.
About a year ago, I received an email from a college-going complete stranger on MySpace who had been recommended my first book, The Other Side of What, because a friend of his thought the storyline of the lead character sounded a bit too much like his own life. We corresponded very briefly, and while I was flattered, I hopefully convinced him that the book was not based on any events in his life because (1) I had never met this person and (2) We established I wrote the majority of the book before those certain events in his life had even taken place. I think he was disappointed.
As I Rode with Cullen Baker opens, we are met with a scene evocative of Gone with the Wind with Tara burning in the background. Set in the South in the midst of the civil war, fifteen year old Jessica Linville watched while the Federal cavalry burned her house to the ground.
I admire historical fiction that draws from real facts from our history books and presents new theories on events or fills in the gaps history skipped over. S. G. Cardin has written such a book called Across the Fickle Winds of History. Now, with a title and book cover like that, I knew I wanted to read it.
I have to admit that Thomas Patrick’s book appealed to me because of its book cover. Don’t judge a book and all. The cover itself is not appealing as it appears to be a bad scan of an old sepia photograph or quite possibly a photo taken of a photograph in a frame since there seems to be a shiny glare just across the woman’s face. However, I have a huge respect for the sepia photographs of yesterday and have been known to buy them up when I see them in junk stores and antique places. Yes, I have an odd collection of pictures of complete strangers…your great great grandparents, perhaps? So the old lady in the long dress feeding the chickens out in the yard spoke to me and I knew I wanted to read this book.
There’s a door to a room in the back of my mind where I store thoughts and bits of information – historical, current events, song lyrics, words and their definitions, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, movie scenes, lines from a book, pieces of conversation, etc. – determined to use them in a book one day. I have a huge respect for the historical fiction genre and for authors who are inspired by pieces of history and creative enough to put them into fictional context. Years ago I came across articles on a steamboat accident that happened at the end of the Civil War and killed almost as many people as the Titanic tragedy did many years later, but it was clouded over in the news by the assassination of Lincoln. I’m still determined to work it into a novel some day. For now, it sits in that far away room.
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