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In Spy of Richmond, one of my main characters is an inmate of Libby Prison and tries to escape. As he is desperately digging through a dark tunnel with very little oxygen, and making barely any progress, one of my characters tells himself, “This is not a grave, it is rebirth.” Isn’t this true for whatever we must overcome in our own lives? When we’re in the midst of a trial that seems to imprison us, we may be isolated, in the dark, and gasping for breath. It might feel like our burial. But with God’s help, that dark place can really be a tunnel to get us to a new place of rebirth. *Read about  my own dark tunnel here, on The Borrowed Book blog. * More on the Libby Prison Breakout here. Spy of Richmond (Heroines Behind the Lines Civil War Book 4) [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1156", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignleft size-full wp-image-2014", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"125", "height":"193", "alt":"125Spycover"}}]]432 pages, softcover*  Is living a lie ever the right thing to do? The Confederate capital in the height of the Civil War: no place for a Union loyalist. But just the place for a spy. Her father a slaveholder, her suitor a Confederate officer, and herself an abolitionist, Sophie Kent must walk a tightrope of deception in her efforts to end slavery. As suspicion in Richmond rises, Sophie’s espionage becomes more and more dangerous. If her courage will carry her through, what will be lost along the way—her true love, her father, her life?        [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1157", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignnone wp-image-2768 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"134", "height":"45", "alt":"add-to-goodreads-button"}}]]  

With Valentine's Day soon upon us, let's talk about love. Many of you know that I had the honor and privilege of co-authoring The 5 Love Languages Military Edition with Dr. Gary Chapman a while ago. Working on that book helped me invest in my own marriage in ways that I hadn't before. It also improved my writing when it came to developing characters and relationships. Now, I am not a romance novelist, but there is love in my books: between spouses, sweethearts, parents and children, siblings. So what I'm about to share can be applied to every loving relationship in your books, too. The love language concept is simple but profound: what feels loving to one person doesn't necessarily feel loving to another person. Dr. Chapman has identified five basic "languages" in which we express and receive love: Words of Affirmation Quality Time Receiving Gifts Acts of Service Physical Touch As you develop your characters, determine which of the above is their primary love language, and be consistent with that. If her main love language is Words of Affirmation, we should see her really respond when someone verbally affirms, encourages, and supports her. By the same token, harsh words will hurt her very deeply. If a heroine's love language is Acts of Service, for example, a bouquet of roses at the end of a hard day will not impress her nearly as much as if the hero would pitch in and clean the kitchen instead.  Love languages can spark romance or conflict, depending on how you pair them. Use them to ramp up the tension between two people. Conflict happens when two people do not express and receive love in the same way. In my book Yankee in Atlanta, Edward's love language is Physical Touch, but his wife has been abused in the past, which makes it nearly impossible for her to bestow physical affection upon him. Worse, when he tries to show her his love in the same way he wants to receive it (touch), it triggers negative feelings in her. Edward feels shunned and unloved, which erases his motivation to treat her lovingly. It's a vicious cycle. When a person feels unloved, it's very difficult to want to behave in a loving way, especially if that particular love language doesn't come naturally. In Spy of Richmond, my character Bella Jamison wonders how her husband feels about her anymore because their most recent conversation---months ago---was clipped and short. His deployment has thrust a gaping silence between them which grates on her more than it would if her love language were not Words of Affirmation. So when she sneaks into Richmond to find him a prisoner at Libby Prison, she longs to speak and hear words that will bond them together again. Here's an excerpt from their first meeting outside the prison where he is chopping wood: Light and shadow fought within Abraham's eyes, and he breathed in deeply. Bella could almost see the wheels in his mind grinding laboriously. Until finally, "I didn't ask you to come."   Bella tried not to stiffen. "I got things I need to say to you."   He picked up his axe, scanned the perimeter, but did not look at her directly. Nodded, and she understood that she was to speak, and quickly.   Bella wanted to be smooth and eloquent, when her nature was to be practical and straightforward. Perhaps a little too sharp. She wanted her words to sing to him, draw a smile from his lips. She wanted them to be a tender caress, a balm to his wounds of both body and spirit. But they were standing in an alley outside a Confederate prison, with the clatter of horses and merchants and shoppers rattling the very air about them. As the guard's voice raised itself over Peter's, Bella's speech was chopped to bits by Abraham's swinging axe, and he did not look at her as she, dressed as the slave she had once been, dropped pieces of her heart from her lips. Knowing Bella's love language helped me understand how excruciating this interaction would have been for her. As you develop the primary and secondary love languages of your characters, think about whether there is a specific reason those languages are meaningful to them. Many times, we long for the expression of love that we have gone without. Edward's longing for Physical Touch relates to the fact that his mother died when he was too young to remember her, and he was raised by a succession of nannies who didn't touch him any more than they had to. In the example from Spy of Richmond, we get the idea that Bella may not have spoken Words of Affirmation much under normal circumstances ("her nature was to be practical and straightforward"), but the fact that so few words had passed between her and Abraham during the war brought that need to the surface for her.  Perhaps a character who grew up with barely enough food on the table really appreciates the love language of Receiving Gifts now. Not every character's love language needs to be born from their personal history. My love language is Quality Time, and I can't imagine a particular reason for that. But as you get to know your characters, perhaps you'll make some connections that add to their three-dimensionality. To further explore the love languages, check out www.5lovelanguages.com or find a copy of the book The 5 Love Languages. You'll be able to draw your own connections to the characters you're developing--and your own relationships will benefit, too, I'm sure! 

Clara Barton, the most famous Civil War nurse, was born on December 25, 1821 (yes we're celebrating a little early). Fiercely independent and devoted to her causes, yet given to paranoia and depressive episodes, she led a fascinating life. She continued her service after the war ended by opening the Missing Soldiers' Office in Washington, D.C. to help family members find the remains of their loved ones. By 1869, she had identified 22,000 missing men and received and responded to 63,182 letters from those trying to locate their soldiers. Later, Clara brought a chapter of the International Red Cross to life in America. Read her full bio here and/or watch the brief video below.  Here is another great Web page, Historical Nurses: All About Clara Barton, which includes more than a dozen helpful links for further exploration. To give you just a glimpse of her nursing days in the Civil War, I'm sharing the following excerpt from my book Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front: In the Line of Fire Though it was only a little after noon, Clara Barton could not see the sun. The smoke at Antietam, Maryland, was so dense it clouded her vision, and the hot sulphurous breath of battle parched her mouth until her lips cracked and bled. At her feet, a man lying on the ground asked her for a drink. Kneeling at his side, she raised and held him with her right hand. “Just at this moment,” she later recalled, “a bullet sped its free and easy way between us, tearing a hole in my sleeve and found its way into his body. He fell back dead.” Soon after, she encountered a man with a bullet still buried in his face. Knowing the surgeons were occupied with more serious operations, he implored her to use her pocketknife to carve out the ball herself. This was a new call. I had never severed the nerves and fibers of human flesh, and I said I could not hurt him so much. He looked up, with as nearly a smile as such a mangled face could assume, saying, “You cannot hurt me, dear lady, I can endure any pain that your hands can create. Please do it. It will relieve me so much.”   I could not withstand his entreaty and opening the best blade of my pocket knife, prepared for the operation . . . I extracted the ball and washed and bandaged the face. . . . I assisted the sergeant to lie down again, brave and cheerful as he had risen, and passed on to others. Though she is the Civil War’s most famous field nurse, Clara Barton wasn’t the only one to put herself in harm’s way to care for soldiers even before the bullets stopped flying. Alabama’s Juliet Opie Hopkins was hit twice in the leg at Seven Pines, Michigan’s Annie Ethridge was wounded in the hand at Chancellorsville, and New York’s Elmina Spencer, was shot through the sciatic nerve at City Point, Virginia. Yet none of these women left the service of nursing. Prayer: Lord, make me strong for the tasks you have called me to do. Give me courage to persevere even under trials. “She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.” ~Proverbs 31:17 [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1118", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter size-full wp-image-2627", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"500", "height":"500", "alt":"Claraquote1"}}]] _________________________________ If you're interested in a closer look at Civil War nursing, I encourage you to take a look at this PDF guide I created to accompany Wedded to War, my novel about women nurses during the war. I designed it with homeschooling high schoolers in mind, but anyone with an interest in digging deeper into the topic will enjoy it.

[[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1072", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter wp-image-2308 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"600", "height":"222", "alt":"FBYankeecover"}}]] Caitlin tucked her feet beneath Rascal’s warm body, the rag rug that had formerly been under the workroom’s table now in a tangle of sewn-together strips on the table in front of her. Twisting them tightly, she dipped them into a bowl of liquid beeswax, rosin, and turpentine. The days were only getting shorter, and there were no candles to be had unless one made them at home.   Ana sat across from Caitlin at the work table, elbows resting on the First Reader for Southern Schools open in front of her. When the wax had cooled enough, Caitlin carefully pressed the warm waxed strips around a glass bottle, from the base to the neck.   “Why don’t you read aloud, Ana.”   The girl sat up a little straighter. “All right. Lesson Twenty-nine. ‘The man’s arm has been cut off. It was shot by a gun. Oh! What a sad thing war is!’ ”   “That’s enough.” Ragged crimson memories from the Battles of First Bull Run and Seven Pines exploded in Caitlin’s mind. Horrific scenes that had been engraved on the parchment of her soul. Certainly it wasn’t good for Ana to dwell on such things with her own father in the army. “Let’s read something else for your lesson. Do you know where Robinson Crusoe is?” The above scene is an excerpt from Yankee in Atlanta, where we find Caitlin McKae, formerly a Union soldier, a governess in Atlanta for the daughter of a Rebel soldier. (If you’re scratching your head about that one, I promise the Prologue and Chapter 1 of the novel will clear it right up.) One of my most fascinating discoveries while researching this novel was that of Southern textbooks. Since Caitlin is teaching her seven-year-old charge at home, I had the opportunity to include some fascinating excerpts, such as the one above, which is verbatim from its original source. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1073", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignleft wp-image-2310 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"266", "height":"400", "alt":"childrenswar"}}]]During the Civil War, scores of primers, readers, and arithmetics emerged from Southern presses, borne out of a widely held perception of northern textbooks’ anti-southern biases. In The Children’s War, historian James Marten says: In fact only a few antebellum publications specifically attacked slavery, and they were all published prior to 1830. A few school histories provided factual information, limited mainly to laws and compromises related to the institution. Although slavery was virtually never mentioned as a sectional issue, schoolbooks increasingly provided examples and excerpts that highlighted the intrinsic value of the Union. Spellers used sentences such as “Stand by the Union!” and “In union there is strength,” while readers offered stories that showed the benefits of union and emphasized the institutions and customs common to all of the United States. The most popular readers, McGuffy’s, studiously avoided controversial issues. Even versions printed in 1862 and 1863 did not promote one side or the other, but did include stories and poems showing the hardships of war. Still, Southern presses in cities from Richmond to Mobile to Galveston produced nearly 100 schoolbooks for both patriotic and economic reasons (think blockade). Some left the war entirely out of the content. Others didn’t. In a Confederate arithmetic by L. Johnson, long lists of story problems feature war situations. In one a merchant sells salt to a soldier’s wife, in another students are asked to imagine rolling cannonballs out of their bedrooms, and in another they are to divide Confederate soldiers into squads and companies. Johnson also included these famous problems: “A Confederate soldier captured 8 Yankees each day for 9 successive days; how many did he capture in all?”; “If one Confederate soldier kills 90 Yankees, how many Yankees can 10 Confederate soldiers kill?”; and “If one Confederate soldier can whip 7 Yankees, how many soldiers can whip 49 Yankees?” Mrs. M. B. Moore’s Dixie Speller had a horrifying lesson, which I just had to use in the novel. This sad war is a bad thing. My pa-pa went, and died in the army. My big brother went too, and got shot. A bomb shell took off his head. My aunt had three sons, and all have died in the army. [I hope] we will have peace by the time I am old enough to go to war. . . When little boys fight, old folks whip them for it; but when men fight, they say ‘how brave!’ If I were a grown-up, I would not have any war if I could help it. [But if forced to go] I would not run away like some do. . . I would sooner die at my post than desert. If my father had run away, and been shot for it, how sad I must have felt all my life! . . .This is a sad world at best. But if we pray to God to help us, and try to do the best we can, it is not so bad at last. I will pray God to help me to do well, that I may grow up to be a good and wise man. Of course, the Civil War touched children in ways far more scathing than textbook lessons. For a more complete picture, I encourage you to check out Marten’s The Children’s War (University of North Carolina Press, 1998). Or, if you’re like me and prefer to learn while being entertained with a novel, Yankee in Atlanta shows the variety of hardships Ana faced while her father fought to defend their home.

Atlanta, Georgia Tuesday, November 15, 1864 Finally, inexplicably, there is wood for the fireplace. Warmth spread throughout Caitlin's body, relaxing muscles kinked from weeks of shuddering in the drafty house. She stepped closer to the fire, smiling as the heat caressed her face. Finally, the chill is gone. "Wake up! Wake up!" Caitlin jerked awake to find Ana yanking on her arm. Wraiths of smoke crawled across the ceiling. The fire was not in the parlor hearth, but on the floor, spreading in a crackling pool from a blackened pine torch. The clock's chimes jarred Caitlin's nerves once, twice, three times, as flames flashed on its face. _____________________________________________________________ The above excerpt from Yankee in Atlanta reflects the historical event of Sherman's armies burning Atlanta 150 years ago today. Actually, Sherman's men had begun the fires on November 12, 1864, targeting places of military importance such as factories and railroad stations. But, even though General Slocum issued a five-hundred-dollar reward for anyone who caught soldiers committing arson at private residences, wayward soldiers did torch plenty of homes. Ten-year-old Carrie Berry wrote the following in her diary about this night: [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1110", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright size-medium wp-image-2550", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"300", "height":"240", "alt":"carrieberry"}}]]"Oh what a night we had. They came burning the store house and about night it looked like the whole town was on fire. We all set up all night. If we had not set up our house would have ben [sic] burnt up for the fire was very near and the soldiers were going around setting houses on fire where they were not watched. They behaved very badly."* The Berry family was among about five hundred residents still living in Atlanta. When Confederate General Hood evacuated Atlanta a couple of months earlier, Atlanta's population was at four thousand, down from its war-time peak of more than twenty thousand. When General Sherman moved in in early September 1864, his forced evacuation of the shell-shocked residents whittled it down to a mere fifty families or so, who were allowed to stay by special permission. For those residents, November 12-15, 1864, was a terrifying time, indeed. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1111", "attributes":{"class":"media-image size-full wp-image-2553", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"540", "height":"640", "alt":"Train depot ruined upon Sherman"}}]] Train depot ruined upon Sherman's departure   None of them knew then that Sherman's departure would be the start of his infamous March to the Sea, in which the idea of "total war" would be played out with a vengeance. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1112", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-2555 size-full", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"597", "height":"467", "alt":"Painting: \u0026quot;War Is Hell\u0026quot; by Mort Kunstler, depicting Sherman in Atlanta"}}]] Painting: "War Is Hell" by Mort Kunstler, depicting Sherman in Atlanta   [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"1113", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignright size-full wp-image-2559", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"150", "height":"190", "alt":"carrie diary"}}]]*I obtained a transcript of Carrie Berry's full diary courtesy of the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center. Portions of her diary have been published in several different books, as well, including A Confederate Girl: The Diary of Carrie Berry, 1864. For more about the historical background to Yankee in Atlanta, visit www.heroinesbehindthelines.com.