Civil War novel by J. J. Ranson / Releasing in Early 2026
‘What She Couldn’t Say’ (Working Title)
Two women, bound by blood and separated by more than a century, are each entrusted with a secret that could alter the course of their lives—and the lives of those they love.
In Civil War–era Virginia, Abigail learns early that survival depends on silence. As the country fractures around her, she is drawn into a dangerous web of loyalties and forbidden truths, forced to decide what freedom means when the cost of claiming it may be unbearable.
In present-day Virginia, Violet has spent her life sensing the weight of a past no one speaks of. When a long-buried family truth begins to surface, she must reckon with the choices of the women who came before her—and with her own willingness to protect a legacy built on secrecy.
Moving between two timelines, this intimate family novel explores how history is carried not just in records and landmarks, but in the quiet decisions passed from mother to daughter. A story of love constrained and love defied, of women navigating power in a world that denies it to them, this novel asks what is lost when the truth is hidden—and what might finally be reclaimed when it is told.
This current work-in-progress is a dual-timeline novel that tells a family story spanning from the US Civil War to the present day. Its themes include freedom, forbidden love, women’s rights, redemption, the value of understanding one’s history, and more.
Chapter 1 Scene (draft)
The summer sun blazed down on untended fields, where wild grasses had grown waist-high, dry and golden in the August heat. Through this golden expanse cut a dark line—three Union soldiers, their black leather boots pressing flat paths that vanished moments after they passed.
A young soldier swung his rifle in nervous arcs, startling a covey of quail. The birds exploded skyward in a rush of wings and alarmed calls. The soldiers flinched at the sudden noise, hands tightening on their weapons, before recognizing the harmless source. Behind them, two miles back, came the distant, irregular pop of gunfire—a sound as familiar to these men as their own heartbeats.
Benjamin, shirtless in the summer swelter, stopped the rhythmic pull of his hoe through rocky soil to stare stoically at the three men. The red-haired man raised a hand in greeting as the man bent his head over his task again. The clash of metal against stone resumed.
Abigail watched the soldier as he stared at the slave. The slam of a door startled her from her heat-hazed thoughts.
“Abigail!” Anthony’s excited call reached her all the way upstairs.
“Up here,” she called, not wanting to leave the spot where she could follow the progress of the strangers.
“You see ‘em?” Anthony slipped beside her, smelling of sweat and wood smoke. He’d been tending the day’s fire when she left for the house a few hours ago. He touched her shoulder as he leaned close to the glass. “They’s wearin’ blue. What’s that mean? Why the enemy comin’ here?”
She shook her head and shushed him, still watchful.
The soldiers reduced their distance from the main house, its black rooftop and fieldstone chimney urging them closer.
Their boots crunched on the gravel leading to the wooden porch that wrapped around the front of the house. They turned to survey the property filled with the musical chirps of birds and the buzz of insects. Clouds of gnats pulsed in dark waves over the stone walkway out front.
Anthony darted back down the stairs and out the back.
Abigail left the upstairs window, shaking her head at the dresses strewn on the two beds. Eloise and Phoebe had left a mess behind. On the upstairs landing, she watched the smallest soldier peek through two of the windows and the French doors.
“Looks empty,” he announced loudly.
The tall, dark-haired man nodded his head at the soldier to open the front door. The black door squeaked. The front hall’s slate floor accepted the soldiers’ boots with an echoing tap-tap.
“Walk the perimeter,” he ordered the young soldier. “Outbuildings too.”
“Sir.” The young man turned stiffly from the doorway and marched down the wooden stairs.
The doctors sniffed the air. The welcoming scent of baked bread beckoned them further into the house. A richly furnished parlor opened on their right. The large room on the left boasted a ten-foot long mahogany table, and a dozen upholstered chairs. The sideboard held six silver candlesticks. They turned toward the staircase with its scuffed treads and newly polished banister.
“What have we here?” The tall doctor’s voice boomed. Abigail flinched as two sets of enemy eyes settled on her. Her eyes darted left and right along the landing. Trapped! She should have followed Anthony.
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