The book to read for April 2020
Looking for something to read while social distancing this April? One April After the War is the answer. Structured to follow the April calendar of 1870, the novel can be read in a chapter a day, plus a chapter that covers the important night of April 16, 1870 and an epilogue that covers a few days in May, bringing to a close the first of a two-part story. The conclusion, Turntable, is due to be released in May 2020, in time for your May bookshelf.
One April After the War follows the journey of Mary Warner, accompanied by Merritt and Argent, operatives of the relatively newly-formed Secret Service, from her home near Louisville, Kentucky to Washington City. The two men meet Mary on April First, but they are the April fools, having assumed her to be an old widow by the same name. A trip by train that should take at most three days stretches out to a monthlong odyssey as they are compelled by circumstances to be delayed in several cities along the way — Covington in Kentucky, Cincinnati and Athens in Ohio, Parkersburg and Grafton in the new state of West Virginia, Cumberland in Maryland, and back into West Virginia at Harper’s Ferry. Circumstances range from the usual trials of travel at the time to the demands of the Service to the strange eccentricities of Mary Warner herself. But perhaps it wasn’t all just bad luck . . .