Secessia

The acclaimed author of The Blood of Heaven shares "e;a vivid portrait of 1862 New Orleans"e; as Union soldiers take over in this panoramic Civil War novel (Ron Charles, Washington Post). The largest city in the ill-starred confederacy has fallen under the soon-to-be-infamous General Benjamin "e;the Beast"e; Butler. And when twelve-year-old Joseph Woolsack disappears from his home, he draws his mother, Elise a mixed-race woman passing for white into a dark new world. Joseph grapples with his father's legacy of violence and his own growing sentiment for Cuban exile Marina Fandal, the only survivor of a shipwreck that claimed the lives of her parents. Meanwhile, Elise struggles to keep hold of her sanity, her son and her own precarious station. But she soon encounters a troubling figure from her past, a man who is deeply mired in the intrigue surrounding the city's occupation. Alternating between the perspectives of five characters, Secessia weaves a tapestry of ravenous greed and malformed love, of slavery and desperation, set within the baroque melting-pot that is New Orleans. A Gothic tableaux vivant of epic scope and intimate horror, Secessia is the netherworld reflection of the conflict between north and south.