WHIPPOORWILL
R. L. Bartram brings us a thrilling tale of espionage set in the American Civil War
Blurb
Barely fourteen, Ceci Prejean is a tomboy running wild in the hot Louisiana summer. After breaking the nose of a local boy, her father decides to enlist the aid of Hecubah, a beautiful Creole woman, with a secret past, who takes Ceci in hand and turns her into a lady.
Now, eighteen-year-old Ceci meets and falls passionately in love with a handsome young northerner, Trent Sinclaire. Trent is a cadet at the West Point military academy. He acts as if he knows Ceci. They begin a torrid affair, even as the southern states begin to secede from the Union.
Only weeks before their wedding, the Confederate army attacks Fort Sumter and the civil war begins. Trent is called to active service in the north, leaving Ceci heartbroken in the south.
Swearing vengeance on the union, after the untimely death of her family at the fall of New Orleans, Ceci meets with infamous spy master, Henry Doucet. He initiates her into the shadowy world of espionage.
After her failure to avert the catastrophe at Gettysburg, Ceci infiltrates the White House. There, she comes face to face with Abraham Lincoln, a man she’s sworn to kill. Forming a reckless alliance with the actor, John Wilkes Booth, she is drawn deeper into the plot to assassinate the President of the United States.
A Confederate spy in love with a Union officer, her next decision will determine whether she lives or dies...
“Although a great deal has been written about the American Civil War, hardly anything has been written about female spies,” observes R. L. Bartram. “Whippoorwill brings a fresh new perspective on this fascinating period.”
Excerpt
Trent was lucky. The Confederate musket
ball that was intended to kill him merely grazed his brow. He lurched violently
back in his saddle. His horse reared wildly, throwing him, unconscious to the
ground, directly into the path of his own cavalry advancing only yards behind
him. At the far end of the field, Sergeant Nathanial Pike and his men, engaged
in the hasty formation of a skirmish line, watched helplessly as the scene
unfolded.
As Trent hit the ground, a Confederate soldier appeared out of the
shadows. Small and slight, little more than a boy, he lunged forwards, grabbed
the officer by the lapels of his coat and dragged him out of the path of the
galloping horses. Throwing himself across the man’s prone body, he shielded him
from the pounding hooves. The cavalry thundered past oblivious, in the
half-light, to the fate of their captain.
As the danger passed, the rebel rose to his
knees and appeared to search the unconscious man.
“God damn thieving rebs.”
Pike snatched his pistol from its holster, his thumb wrenching back the hammer.
Before he could take aim, the rebel stopped searching. He leaned forwards and,
cradling the officer’s face in his hands, bent down and kissed him, full on the
lips, long and hard. Pike’s pistol, arm and jaw dropped simultaneously.
Something, some noise, some movement, made the rebel look up and glance
furtively around. He jumped to his feet and, with a final backwards glance at
the fallen man, melted into the shadows, like a wraith. It was some moments
before Pike’s jaw snapped shut, his teeth meeting with an audible click. He
rounded on his men.
“Did you see what I just saw?” he demanded.
His question
was answered with shrugs and scowls. Not one man there could swear he hadn’t
dreamed it. Then suddenly, they heard it, far off, plaintive and eerie, the cry
of a whippoorwill.
PUBLICATION DATE 28th November 2017
ISBN: 9781788035781 Price: £8.99
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With Historical Romance as his preferred genre, Robert has continued to write for several years. Many of his short stories have appeared in various national periodicals and magazines.
His debut novel “Dance the Moon Down”, a story of love against adversity during the First World War, gained him considerable critical praise, being voted book of the month by “Wall to Wall books”
His second novel “Whippoorwill” tells of a passionate affair between a young southern woman and a northern man at the beginning of the American Civil War.
He is single and lives and works in Hertfordshire.
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