More on GOOD TIME COMING

Here is the cover copy!

I killed a man the summer I turned thirteen . . .

Thus begins C. S. Harris’s haunting, lyrically beautiful tale of coming of age in Civil War-torn Louisiana. Eleven-year-old Amrie St. Pierre is catching tadpoles with her friend Finn O’Reilly when the Federal fleet first steams up the Mississippi River in the spring of 1862. With the surrender of New Orleans, Amrie’s sleepy little village of St. Francisville – strategically located between the last river outposts of Vicksburg and Port Hudson – is now frighteningly vulnerable. As the roar of canons inches ever closer and food, shoes, and life-giving medicines become increasingly scarce, Amrie is forced to grow up fast. But it is her own fateful encounter with a tall, golden-haired Union captain named Gabriel that threatens to destroy everything and everyone she holds most dear.

Told with rare compassion and insight, this is a gripping, heart-wrenching story of loss and survival; of the bonds that form amongst women and children left alone to face the hardships, depravations, and dangers of war; and of one unforgettable girl’s slow and painful recognition of the good and evil that exists within us all.

On a related note, there's been some confusion about pub dates here and overseas, as well as ebook sales and preorder dates, but I think I now have them figured out. Sort of.

The hardcover version of the book is currently available for preorder both here and overseas. It will go on sale in Britain and related countries at the end of August and in the US and Canada at the beginning of December. The ebook will not be available in Britain until it is available here in December (weird, I know, and I don't have a clue why). The ebook will not be available any where for preorder until six weeks before it goes on sale in the States, so  that means preorders should be available in mid-October. Again, I don't quite understand the delay, but that's the way it's set up. 

Good Time Coming

Almost every writer I know has what we call a "book of the heart." It's a story idea that grabs our imagination and won't let go even though we know there's something about the story that will make it really, really hard to sell to New York. Sometimes that "hard sell" aspect is setting (Outer Mongolia, anyone?); sometimes it's subject matter (say, American atrocities in WWII).

The book of my heart is called GOOD TIME COMING. It's a story idea that possessed me way back in 2001, when I was writing my Civil War mystery, Midnight Confessions. As I did the research for that novel, I found I wanted to write a different book: the story of the war in Louisiana as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old girl. I wanted to write about the war the women and children lived; how they survived increasing hardship and danger, and how it changed them.

I started reading diaries and letters and memoirs by the hundreds: I visited Civil War battle sites like Port Hudson, Bayou Sara, and Camp Moore. And then, in the autumn of 2012 when I finished Why Kings Confess comfortably ahead of deadline, I seized the moment. In a white heat of 18+ hour days, seven days a week, I wrote GOOD TIME COMING.

I'd never written anything like it before and I was more than a bit worried about my ability to pull it off. But I can honestly say the manuscript exceeded my wildest expectations. I sent it to my agent, and she was over the moon. It quickly found several editors who waxed poetical about it. One called it "a women's Red Badge of Courage"; another said it was like To Kill a Mockingbird meets Cold Mountain. But in the end, no New York publishing house would buy it.

Why? Because of the subject matter. The Civil War in Louisiana was not pretty. U.S. soldiers did terrible things here, things that most Americans would rather not know about. At the same time, Southerners did things their descendants would rather forget. Look at those days through the unblinkingly honest eyes of a thirteen-year-old, and you have a story that terrifies New York.

For three years that manuscript languished in my cupboard. To say I was heartbroken would be a massive understatement--I mean, this was the book of my heart, right? But I can now tell you that the book no American house had the courage to print has finally found a publisher--a British publisher. It will be released in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa in September, and in the U.S. in December.

I've been sitting on this news for a while now and I've been about to burst. The last time I felt this giddy was back in 1997, when I sold my very first novel.  I am really, really proud of this book, so you'll be hearing more about it soon.

Letting the Good Times Roll

It's official: according to researchers at Harvard and British Columbia, the five happiest cities in the United States are all in Louisiana. They are, in order: Lafayette, Houma, Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and Alexandria. A sixth Louisiana city, Lake Charles, made it into the top ten. (New Orleans, I'm afraid, wasn't very high up on the list).

So why is a place bedeviled by deadly hurricanes and oil spills and poverty so happy? Who knows. But I suspect it has something to do with strong family ties and deep roots, a devotion to good eating and good music, a love of outdoor activities and eating and festivals and eating and... You get the idea.

The unhappiest city in the country was identified as New York City, followed by St. Joseph, Missouri and South Bend, Indiana. Anyone know why?

Fort Proctor

Let me say, first off, that I am not related to whatever unknown Proctor had this fort named after him. But it's a fascinating place, nonetheless.

Built in the 1850s by P.G.T. Beauregard, Fort Proctor was originally intended to be part of a string of forts protecting the approach to New Orleans. But construction was still in progress at the outbreak of the Civil War, and the fort was finally abandoned without ever being garrisoned.

At the time it was built, Fort Proctor was something like 150 feet inland. It is now 250 feet from shore and can only be reached by kayak.

A rock levee has recently been built around the fort in an attempt to  save it from the waves and the hurricanes that batter it (the bits of grass you can see are simply growing in sediment washed in amongst the rocks).

Fort Proctor is located in St. Bernard Parish, to the southeast of New Orleans in Lake Borgne, near the mouth of Bayou Yscloskey. The aerial photograph is from Wikipedia and was taken by Eric Botnik in 2008. All other photos by my daughter, who paddled out there last weekend to celebrate finishing medical school.

Meandering

We've been having one of the warmest, prettiest autumns that I can remember here in New Orleans this year. So Steve and I decided to spend some time exploring more of the old historic sites in the area.

First up was Port Hudson. Yes, it's another Civil War battlefield (for trivia buffs, it was the longest military siege in American history). But there isn't much left to see today beyond some overgrown old earthworks and a cemetery (thousands of men died here). Now it's probably best known for its hiking trails--miles of them, up and down a series of bluffs and ravines that would not have been fun to fight over.

A good way to work off any Thanksgiving excesses!

Next up was Centenary College in Jackson, Louisiana. Also another battle site, this one lies just a few miles to the west of our lake house. Once, Centenary College was one of the grandest liberal arts colleges outside of New England. In fact, its main academic building was actually the largest in the country.

All that's left today is the west dormitory, and another graveyard (the college was turned into a military hospital during the Civil War).

Once, there were so many colleges, preparatory schools, and finishing schools in Jackson that it was known as the "Athens of the South." No longer...

The End of Summer

When I was a little girl, my favorite time of year was always summer. Summer meant blue skies, long warm days, no school, lots of hours to play or read or do whatever I wanted to do. I never understood how my mother could say her favorite time of year was autumn. To me, autumn meant school (in case you hadn't noticed, I loathed school), rainy days, cold--everything I didn't like.

Now that I've moved to New Orleans, where my mother was born and raised, I've come to understand why she loved fall. Summers here are brutal, something to be endured and--come hurricane season and the dangerous vortex of August and September--feared. Don't get me wrong; I still love blue skies and warm days and the exuberant burst of glory they bring to my garden. But I've also come to look forward to the softer days of autumn, to clear, crisp mornings and gentle mists and the scent of woodsmoke on a biting breeze.

Last weekend, we went up to our lake house. The lake is glorious this time of year, and offers a glimpse of the fall coloration that is so gorgeous farther north but is largely lacking around New Orleans. This post has no real point, except that I changed the photo on my desktop this morning to the one at the top, and thought I'd share it. And I can't even take credit for the pictures, because they're the work of my daughter, Danielle, who crept out with her camera early to catch the morning fog, and then went off again in the golden light of evening.

So what's your favorite time of the year? Do you find it changes depending upon where you live? Or maybe aging has something to do with it...