Across the Great Divide Book 1: The Clouds of War
by Michael L. Ross @MichaelLRoss7 on Twitter
Just like today, the country was deeply divided. Emotions were high, reason and common sense almost absent. Our future could mirror their past… unless we reach Across the Great Divide.
Lexington, Kentucky April 1859
In Lexington, home of the Henry Clay family, there are many enslaved people, but also free African Americans. The Clays and other planters make use of the slave labor to run their houses, harvest their fields, do the day to day heavy labor. Many families in the South in antebellum times could not afford slaves. Many farms were small, family operations, people just getting by, day to day. Yet these families supplied the bulk of the soldiers in the coming Civil War.
Lexington’s population was twenty percent slaves – it was a hub of slave commerce. Luther, a slave for the Clays, was purchased from a nearby plantation. His mother and sisters are still there, victims of the vicious Jameson. Should he risk running away with them, to save them?
A poor farm boy, Will Crump, dreams of an education and a better life. Through a chance encounter with John Hunt Morgan, he gets an opportunity…But what will it cost him?
Will’s sister Albinia loves God and is infuriated by injustice. When she helps Luther and his family escape, she also finds forbidden love with an abolitionist.
Will’s oldest sister Julia just wants a rich husband and freedom from the drudgery of the farm. She finds not all men are what they seem, and is drawn into spying for the Federals. Will the risks be worth it?
Follow the Crump family as they try to reach… Across the Great Divide.
Will launch on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores everywhere, April 2019.
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