Debra Glass talks about American Civil War Sesquicentennial

The American Civil War celebrates its sesquicentennial in 2012. Those turbulent years between 1862 and 1865 were a defining moment in our nation’s history. While the Revolutionary War created the United States, the Civil War determined what sort of nation the US would be. The Civil War answered two fundamental questions: Was the United States a confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a strong national government? And; Would a nation, founded on a declaration that all men were created equal continue to operate as the largest slaveholding country in the world?

Union victory in 1865, preserved the United States as one nation and abolished the institution of slavery. This win came at the cost of 625,000 lives.

In 1936, when Margaret Mitchell’s sweeping novel, Gone With the Wind, set during the American Civil War, was published, a worldwide love affair with historical, romantic fiction was born.

Visiting the Atlanta house where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind

As a southerner, I grew up around the relics of those once grand plantation homes, amidst historic markers detailing skirmishes and Hood’s march toward the ill-fated battles of Franklin and Nashville. I heard stories from my great-grandparents about their parents who fought on both sides. I attended college in the South and graduated with an MAed with emphasis in – what else? – history!

My interest in history has always colored my writing. From my locally popular Skeletons in the Closet ghost story collections, to numerous articles for Fate Magazine, and varied Civil War history magazines, to my romantic fiction, the Civil War continues to inspire me.

When I began writing romance, it was no wonder I most often turned to the Civil War for my historical settings.

Here’s what reviewers are saying about my Civil War romances:

“Ms. Glass did an outstanding job of recreating the old South with heart-wrenching visual images of what was going on in and around war ravaged Georgia. Marietta is a perfect backdrop to represent the suffering endured by both soldiers and citizens. It is symbolic of the war torn states as well as the war torn hero and heroine.” ~ Long and Short Reviews

“The strength of Ms. Glass’s writing draws the reader into her deeply emotional and moving love stories time and time again. By intertwining passion and history overlaid with a great depth of emotion and laced with a relentless increasing level of sensuality between Greer, Molly and Hardin the reader is treated to dark and utterly seductive story that pulls-at-the-heartstrings!  Set during the Civil War, Scarlet Widow gives the reader a gripping, detailed and vividly descriptive look at the heartache, hardships and cruelties of war, Molly and the Barksdale brothers experienced that forever changed their lives.  The historically filled pages are brimming with tension, hope and courage, richly portrayed in such a way that the reader will have a difficult time putting this story down. ” ~ The Romance Studio

“Ms. Glass does a beautiful job of bringing the harshness of the Civil War to life in Florence, Alabama. I found this especially interesting since Alabama is seldom used as a plot setting for a civil war romance. The history … illustrated the awful external and internal conflicts Rose and Eric were facing.” ~ Long and Short Reviews

“I love Glass's erotic romances because they're magnificently written and they're often so much "more" than erotic romance. I love her Civil War/Reconstruction fiction because she loves her subject and loves her readers enough to tell them honest, gritty stories with characterizations and issues genuine to that time. Glass immerses readers into culture, society, and events with delectable word pictures and action. Sensory details and exquisite world-building transport willing readers to the realities of a lost time.” ~ MA Goodreads

Revisit the Civil War with one of my books!

Gatekeeper

Book one in the Phantom Lovers series.
Evil shadow ghosts known as soul collectors haunted her childhood nightmares, so Nashville PD criminal profiler Jillian Drew did everything possible to turn her back on her psychic abilities. But now her eccentric sister has been abducted and nothing in her criminology background has prepared Jillian for that tragedy — or for Benton Smith, the powerful and devastatingly attractive ghost of a Civil War officer and the only witness to Amy's abduction.
Fearful of the brazen specter, Jillian nevertheless needs him. Benton is her Gatekeeper, a spirit sworn to protect her from the soul collectors, who attack each time she unleashes her long-dormant psychic senses in an attempt to find her sister.
Yet she must somehow keep the devilishly seductive spirit at arm's length, for Benton's soul is at stake — and succumbing to his desires could have dangerous consequences for them both.

Bought and Paid For

Unable to support herself and her beloved servants, Widow Carrie Hatcher contemplates the unthinkable—offering her services for money. Forced to board wounded Colonel Wesley McEwen in her home, Carrie vows to make the striking Confederate soldier her first “client”.

But Carrie gets more than she bargained for when she agrees to comply with Wesley’s every illicit request for one week. Throughout long, sultry nights, Wesley tutors Carrie in every position, every skill, of her illicit new trade. From dark taboos to pleasurable punishments, Carrie becomes his willing pupil.

Passions inflamed, the couple becomes more scandalously intimate but Carrie realizes she wants to give him far more than just her body. The colonel, however, may be too haunted by his past to risk accepting more than he’s bought and paid for.

Rebel Rose

They say she’s a Rebel spy…

Rosalie O’Kelley is not above using her feminine wiles to secure much-needed supplies for her fellow townspeople. But when Union Colonel Eric Skaarsberg is put in charge, Rose’s usual tactics fail miserably. In exchange for supplies, she comes to a scandalous arrangement with him. She agrees to become his willing plaything—to fulfill his every physical need, eagerly and without hesitation.

Eric is duty-bound to ferret out the spy who has been leaking information to the Confederates. All evidence points to the passionate belle who readily responds to every touch and taste he metes out. One by one, he strips away Rose’s secrets, but Eric is not satisfied with owning the she-Rebel’s luscious body. He must uncover the truth of her past at any cost—even if it means the destruction of them both.

Scarlet Widow

Tough…or tender? If she follows her heart, she won’t have to choose.

Molly has forever lusted for all three Barksdale brothers, but could never choose. Instead, scandal chose for her, and she married the youngest of the three. Then the brothers go to war, and Molly finds herself a grieving widow when her husband is murdered by a merciless band of Union soldiers.

Hardin Barksdale is hell-bent on avenging his brother. Greer Barksdale is honor-bound to protect his home. They both want Molly—and this time, they’re willing to share. The temptation is seductive, the passion sizzling. In harsh, post-war Tennessee, their nightly forbidden trysts wield the power to heal them all—if they can escape the twisted desires of a man bent on seeing all three of them dead.

Haunted

Can a heart still love once it stops beating?

My hopes of having a normal life died when I did. Especially since my near death experience turned me into a clairvoyant with a disfiguring scar. Not exactly most-popular material.

Now, because of me, my whole family has been forced to move to some small town in Tennessee. My parents think a quiet new school and a new set of friends will heal me of the scars I carry both inside and out.

There’s just one problem. I’m being haunted by Jeremiah Ransom, the charming ghost of a Civil War soldier who lived and died in my house. His presence makes me feel perfect. As if there’d never been a wound in the first place.

But I’m afraid that loving him will result in my death all over again.

Skeletons of the Civil War

Ghostly legends abound wherever history has made its mark. Skeletons of the Civil War follows the ghosts of the Army of Tennessee from the bloody Battle of Shiloh to its decimation on the killing fields of Franklin. Combining the craft of a story-teller (Glass), with the expert knowledge of a military historian (Mathews), the stories in this book are packed with archival photographs and intriguing first-hand accounts. Read fresh, spine-tingling accounts of a headless horseman who gallops through the eerie cedar glades at Stones River, the tale of the regiment which earned the nickname The Bloody Ninth at Shiloh, the phantom regiment at Resaca, the spirit of Tennessee’s dashing Boy General, who followed a woman home, the mysterious empty graves near the Hazen monument, weirdness at The Dead Angle, true accounts of spirits who haunt the cavernous rooms of Tennessee’s grand plantation houses, the tragic tale of Captain Tod Carter who was shot down within sight of his home, and many more.

Haunted Mansions in the Heart of Dixie

There is something about an antebellum mansion that whispers ghost. From the rolling cotton fields of Colbert County, Alabama to the haunted hills of Tennessee, there is hardly a pre-Civil War dwelling that cannot boast of some resident spirit or similar unexplained phenomena.

Steeped in history, Haunted Mansions in the Heart of Dixie is a collection of true Southern haint tales set in the fertile Tennessee Valley. From the mysterious Bell Witch to the inexplicable events at Belle Mont Mansion, these tales recount some of the most infamous Southern hauntings of all time. Explore the dark history of Dixie with spirits who loved their homes so much that even in death they refuse to leave, and unearth other more diabolical specters hell-bent on the settling of old scores.

All the tales within are authentic. Proceed, therefore, into the haunted Heart of Dixie with caution. . .

WHO is Debra Glass?

Growing up in the south where the air is thick with stories steeped in legend and truth, Debra came by her love of romance novels honestly. Well…sort of. At an early age, she pilfered from her grandmother’s extensive library and has been a fan of the genre since.

 

A full time freelance writer, Debra especially enjoys combining history, mystery and a touch of taboo to weave stories with unforgettable, haunted heroes.

 

She lives in Alabama with her sexy real life hero, a couple of smart-aleck ghosts and a diabolical black cat.

Website: http://debraglass.com

Contest!

I’ll be glad to give away a copy of any of my Civil War related titles (your choice) to one lucky commenter – drawing to be held 1 week after the blog post appears. Formats: romances – e book format, your choice of file format, and Skeletons of the Civil War or Haunted Mansions in print and signed by the author.