So...I wrote a sequel
I did not see this coming
To say I did not intend to write a sequel to The Turncoat in Carrington Park is an understatement. I was, in fact, adamant that I would never write a sequel. I wanted to leave it hanging on a thread, in the same deliciously open-ended manner of Master and Commander or a Bourne movie. I believe I succeeded.
But a nagging, faint feeling of dissatisfaction kept rearing its ugly head. Not with the story itself, but with the sense that I wasn’t quite done. Not with the time period, the people, or the American Revolution itself. In my research for TCP I unearthed so many extraordinary facets of the war I never knew about. I haven’t taken a US History class in 20 years, but even then I’m fairly confident I had no idea of the pivotal role that the Southern theater played in the war. Here in South Caroline they’ve released a new state license plate with the caption “Where The Revolutionary War Was Won” and I have heard multiple people make comments like, “What? What does that mean? Is that true?”
Like me, these lifelong South Carolinians picture most of the American Revolution confined to New England, dipping down into the Mid-Atlantic on occasion, then wrapping up at the surrender at Yorktown, Virginia. Sure, we all know Charleston was important, for reasons that are…ah…um, something? I certainly did not know.
I decided to find out, and holy moley did I learn some stuff. Wild stuff. The fighting in South Carolina was brutal. Real brother-against-brother, neighbor-against-neighbor conflict. There were more battles and skirmishes here than any other colony, in a relatively short time period. It absolutely was where the Revolutionary War was won.
My new novel, Octavia Hall, follows Silas Underhill, Hannah Burgess, and William Lister as they navigate ever-changing loyalties in the tense, dangerous days before the fall of Charleston in 1780.
I can’t wait to share it with you!
P.S. My overwintered dahlias survived :)
