BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--CIVIL WAR ROMANCE WITH AUTHOR GINA DANNA

After years of writing historical academic papers, USA Today bestselling author Gina Danna has found the time to write her own historical romance novels. Under the supervision of her dogs, she writes amid a library of research books, with her only true break spending time with her other lifelong dream, her Arabian horse. With him, her muse can play. Learn more about Gina and her books at her website. 

The Better Angels & The Civil War

The American Civil War – not quite the normal setting for an historical romance. But for a historian and Civil War reenactor/living historian, it has a huge array of possibilities for a book. So the result for me is my series Hearts Touched by Fire. My 4^th book in the series has just been released this summer and I’m thrilled to be able to tell you about it. It is titled, The Better Angels, the phrase pulled from Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address in March, 1861, when he says directly to the seceding South:

“…We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

This book is the story of Francois Fontaine of Louisiana and Ada Lorrance of Pennsylvania. Francois was introduced in book 1, The Wicked North, as Jack’s older brother. Francois is a bit of a scoundrel, and his character definitely needed to be saved so this book is his redemption story.

Ada is a doctor with the Union Army, though she serves as a nurse, because U.S. Army regulations refused any female physicians. In the 19^th century, few universities had medical schools with a slim number allowing women. Any woman doctor of the period was mostly refrained to treating women and children and that attitude applied to the Federal Army, despite their need for help. Wanting to aid the North as best she could, Ada signs on as a nurse, of Dorothea Dix’s nursing corps, and is assigned to help the field hospitals of General Meade in Virginia. There, at times, she finds a way to utilize her medical training in helping the wounded, though that brings many conflicts with the commanding surgeon. Ada is a very strong-minded lady, and her determination to help is her driving factor. 

She is also an abolitionist, hoping the Union wins to free the slaves. But Francois comes from a wealthy plantation in Louisiana, where they raise sugar, using slaves as their laborers. His family has done this for generations, and he saw no issues about it. But when he ends up wounded and under her care, the war takes on a new meaning, because to her, he stands for everything she hates….what will she do when he steals her heart?

  

Writing this series has been fabulous and involved. As a trained historian (I have my BA, MA and work towards my PhD in History), I want to craft a tale that is accurate and takes my reader back to that time. To get a glimpse into these people who went to war during the most pivotal time in U.S. history. These people are real – you meet the generals and politicians who went to war, both the North and South. Their lifestyles, thoughts are pulled from research books and time actually portraying them as a Living Historian. As an historian, it is the most fascinating time in defining this country, and in so many ways, has yet to be resolved.

So come back with me, to the time of Antebellum US and the War Between the States (the US Government’s official name of the rebellion), and explore how these people lived, their fears, their excitement and loss. And see if Francois can be redeemed!

The Living Historian's Creed

By Bruce Catton, Civil War Historian

• We are the people to whom the past is forever speaking.
• We listen to it because we cannot help ourselves, for the past speaks to us with many voices.
• Far out of that dark nowhere which is the time before we were born, men who were flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone went through fire and storm to break a path to the future. 
• We are part of that future they died for.
• They are part of the past that brought the future.
• What they did--the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the stories they told and the songs they sang and, finally, the deaths they died--make up a part of our own experience.
• We cannot cut ourselves off from it.
• It is as real as something that happened last week.
• It is a basic part of our heritage as Americans.

The Better Angels

Hearts Touched by Fire Series, Book 4

In 1864, Francois Fontaine has a life of leisure as part of the planter class in Louisiana.

Everything changes when the woman he loves marries another man. Heartbroken, he flees east to joining the army in an attempt to forget. But in Virginia, wounded and captured, he quickly discovers that an injured Confederate soldier faces a bleak future.

Dr. Ada Lorrance wants to help in the cause against Southern slavery, but the army medical department will not take a women doctor, yet they need nurses so she bites her lip and joins as one, soon to discover that when the surgeons are overwhelmed, she is left to doctor the prisoners. She finds herself attracted to a rebel, a man who stands for everything she despises, making her hope he rots, but her heart falls for him.

Thrown together by war, Francois and Ada find themselves battling over their beliefs and fighting against the growing affections that is fragile enough to pull them apart.

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--AUTHOR KATHY OTTEN BAKES CIVIL WAR GINGERBREAD

Kathy Otten is the author of multiple historical romance novels, novellas, and short stories as well as contemporary romance and historical fiction. Today she joins us to discuss cooking during the Civil War. Learn more about Kathy and her books at her website.

While researching my new Civil War novel, I discovered that gingerbread was a particular favorite of soldiers during the war. Families sent the treat in care packages to their loved ones along with socks, which marching soldiers always needed. It was also considered nutritious and easy to digest, which is why it was considered good hospital food.

Maybe the nutrition was in the molasses. I only wonder about this because my mother, when she was a little girl back in the 30’s, was given sulfur and molasses every spring by her grandparents.

In my story, the nuns helped my heroine make gingerbread for the wounded in the hospital. In digging through old recipes, I thought I’d give it a try. The photos I’d seen from that time period showed the gingerbread having been baked in a loaf pan and cut into slices. When I made mine, I poured the batter into a traditional square pan.

And of course the recipe I followed had been revised like many recipes were in the late 1800’s. Women such as Fanny M. Farmer and Mary Johnson Bailey Lincoln, eliminated such vague measurements such as “a good size piece,” “middlin,’” and “large cup,” standardizing measurements and including specific cooking instructions. Until then, cookbooks were uncommon and recipes were handed down from generation to generation.

My great-great-grandfather was a baker, and he had a notebook that was passed down on my mother’s side of the family. They were his notes and recipes so phrases like, “add enough milk to bake good,” make recreating his recipes nearly impossible.

So I dug through the Internet and one of my go-to books, Food on the Frontier, Minnesota Cooking from 1850 to 1900, by Marjorie Kreidberg. The recipe I found inside, A “Very Good” Gingerbread was from Anna Ramsey’s Book of Recipes, 1865.

However, this recipe called for 2 cups of molasses, and I didn’t have enough, so I found a second recipe used by Josephine Peffer, a twelve-year-old girl who won a blue ribbon for her gingerbread at the 1860 Wisconsin State Fair.

Civil War Gingerbread

Ingredients:

1 cup Molasses

1 T. ground ginger

1/4 lb. butter, softened

1 Teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup buttermilk (which I made by using regular milk and adding 2 tablespoons vinegar and letting it sit for a few minutes—an old trick my mother taught me)

2 eggs

2 cups flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch square pan and dust lightly with flour. Beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add eggs and beat well. Add the buttermilk and molasses and blend.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, ginger, and baking powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 35 minutes. Stick a toothpick into the center of the gingerbread. If it comes out clean, the gingerbread is done. Cool the pan and cut into 9 pieces.

It is really rather good and has no sugar added.  I’d recommend trying it, and I understand why that little girl from long ago won her blue ribbon.

A Place in Your Heart

Gracie McBride isn’t looking for love; she’s looking for respect. But in this man’s world of Civil War medicine, Gracie is expected to maintain her place changing beds and writing letters. Her biggest nemesis is the ward surgeon, Doctor Charles Ellard, who seems determined to woo her with arrogant kisses and terrible jokes.

Charles is an excellent surgeon. He assumed he would be well received by an army at war. He was not. Friendless and alone, he struggles to hide the panic attacks that plague him, while the only person who understands him is a feisty Irish nurse clearly resolved to keep him at a distance.

But, Charles is sent to the battlefield, and Gracie is left with a wounded soldier, a box of toys, and a mystery which can only be solved by the one man she wishes could love her, both as a woman and a nurse.

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COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR HALEY WHITEHALL

Haley Whitehall has been obsessed with telling stories since the age of four. Her addiction to the Civil War era came later, but proved no less potent. She earned her B.A in history from Central Washington University. Pairing her two passions, she writes historical romance with a touch of faith. Learn more about Haley and her books at her website. 

It is a pleasure to be on Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers again. I write Civil War era historical romance, and often my romances are interracial. Midnight Kiss is the third book in my Moonlight Romance series set in the South during Reconstruction.

I think food and romance go together quite well. I don’t write foodie romance, but even in my historical romance food naturally plays a part. Back in the 19^th century women were expected to be better cooks than they are today. After all there was no such thing as McDonald’s!

In Midnight Kiss, Matt Seever hires April to be a nanny to his two children. He has been a widower for four years. She doesn’t mind cleaning up his messy house and cooking his meals, too. What she did not realize was flapjacks could lead to them sharing more than a meal together.

Matt can’t cook. Working as an officer on the steamer the Queen Bee, he had his meals provided for him. After he quit and took a job in St. Louis, Missouri working for his brother, his supply of good meals disappeared. Fate brought him and April together. He and his children like anything she cooks–but their favorite is flapjacks.

Old Fashioned Pancakes Recipe

(makes approximately 12 pancakes)

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon white sugar

1-1/4 cup milk

1 egg

3 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.

Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan at 350. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Midnight Kiss (Moonlight Romance, Book 3)

Unjustly accused of stealing, nanny April Windmire is turned out on the streets without pay. With no place to go and no friends, she stows away on a Mississippi River steamboat. Her hopes to hide through the journey to St. Louis are dashed when a handsome white officer finds her. But instead of turning her in, he takes her to his private quarters where she fights her growing attraction to a man she cannot have.

Matt Seever’s wife died four year ago, leaving him alone with two small mulatto children. But his job as an officer on the Queen Bee isn’t family friendly. He knows he needs a new wife, but no southern white woman will marry him. When April lands in his lap, his prayers are answered. Or are they? April’s not the trusting type and racial prejudice runs deep in post-Civil War Missouri. Just when Matt convinces April he loves her, his new family becomes a target and there’s no backing down from this fight.

Together, April and Matt must brave heinous race prejudice crimes to find an enduring love.

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COOKING WITH CLORIS--AUTHOR HALEY WHITEHALL'S PEACH PIE

Haley Whitehall has been obsessed with telling stories since the age of four. Her addiction to the Civil War era came later, but proved no less potent. She earned her B.A in history from Central Washington University. Pairing her two passions, she writes historical fiction with a touch of faith. Learn more about Haley and her books at her website. 

It is a pleasure to be on Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers. I’ve been writing Civil War era historical fiction for a little while now and finally ventured over into historical romance. There is something fulfilling about bringing two characters together and writing a happy ending.

My first historical romance novella Midnight Caller has been published by Liquid Silver Books. Actually, the second book in the Moonlight Romance series Midnight Heat has been published now, too. I seldom take the easy way out. When I tell people I’ve written African American romance set right after the Civil War, I usually get some odd looks. I guess I just feed off the added complications.

The question is how to smooth over those complications. You know the saying: the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? Well, in many instances I believe this to be true—perhaps more so in the past when a woman’s place was firmly in the home. In Midnight Caller Emma woos Frederick with peach pie. Frederick knows it is not safe for them to be together, but love blossoms at the table.

Excerpt:

Emma put on a pot of coffee and presented him with a peach pie. “I made this for you,” she said coyly.

Emma had made him a peach pie? None of his clients had ever baked for him before. None had cared.

“Thank you, ma’am.” He hadn’t wanted to put his big toe over the line, but by baking him a pie Emma had jumped across it.

What should he do now? Admit his true feelings? Let her know he’d fantasized about her every night on the steamboat, couldn’t wait to get back to her, and wanted to make love to her for hours?

Before he said something he’d regret he filled his mouth with a bite of pie. “This is delicious.”

“I haven’t made a pie since…but I’ve had a lot of practice with baking.”

“Mm, that’s something I’m looking for in a wife; well I reckon every man would like a good cook.” His cheeks heated. The words slipped naturally out of his mouth.

Emma’s dazzling hazel eyes brightened, sparkling like crystal. “I hope you’re right.” She paused and leaned forward. “My husband didn’t want children. But I do.”

Frederick nodded. “I’m sure you’ll be a good mother.” He didn’t know what else to say.

“You said you have a younger brother. Tell me about him.”

Frederick shifted in his chair. Why did she care? “His name is George. I took care of him after our mama was sold.”

“Oh.” For a minute she was speechless and the awkward conversation paused. “Well,” she dragged out the word, “I’m glad you have each other. You’re better off than me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m an orphan and an only child. It has made many of my years lonely.”

Frederick poked at the pie with his fork. He didn’t want Emma to be lonely. “Have you considered getting a dog? Many are protective, too.”

She tilted her head as if considering this. “That is a good idea. But what I really need is a man.”

Peach Pie

Ingredients:

10 fresh peaches, pitted and sliced

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup butter

2 pre-made crusts for a 9 inch pie (or you can be like Emma and make your own.)

Mix flour, sugar and butter into crumb stage. Place one crust in the bottom of a 9 inch pie plate. Line the shell with some sliced peaches. Sprinkle some of the butter mixture on top of the peaches, then put more peaches on top of the crumb mixture. Continue layering until both the peaches and crumbs are gone. Top with lattice strips of pie crust. (Okay. I confess I never get this fancy. I just put the crust on top.)

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes, or until crust is golden. Allow pie to cool before slicing. Best when eaten fresh.

Midnight Caller (Moonlight Romance, Book 1)

When Emma Bennett’s husband dies in a carriage accident in 1865, she is released from her loveless, controlling marriage. Now she has a chance to find happiness and raise a family. But before she begins courting again, she wants to experience her freedom. At the advice of the leading socialite in town, she takes a black lover to fulfill her sexual needs. His raw, masculine power awakens feelings she didn’t know existed. After the first touch she craves more.

Frederick works as a roustabout by day and moonlights as a prostitute. He knows better than to fall in love with his white client, but Emma enchants him the first time he calls on her. To keep them both safe, he works hard to put up barriers. Unfortunately, he can’t protect Emma from the slimy Mr. Hawthorne, who wants her as his bride. Frederick vows to keep her safe even if his forbidden love costs him his life.

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