Driving in a familiar Lane

I admit I considered another course. After writing the Carson Chronicles, an exhaustive five-book set, I was ready for a change.

But as I pondered my options for my next series, I realized I was not quite ready to say goodbye to time travel, family sagas, or even historical fiction. So I jumped back in. I took the best elements of my first fifteen novels, focused a little more on suspense, and came up with a storyline for what I hope will be my best series yet.

Like the Carsons, the Lanes of Fredericksburg, Virginia, are a family with a problem. Weeks after noted physicist Mark Lane, 52, creates the world's first time machines, he learns his corporate partner wants to use the portable devices for nefarious purposes.

Rather than give him the chance to do so, Mark takes the time boxes and his family to the relative safety of 1865. For Mark, wife Mary, and their four children, the adventure is a chance to grow. Mary runs a business selling modern cosmetics. Jeremy, 19, and Ashley, 12, befriend an abolitionist and two escaped slaves in wartime Washington. Laura, 22, finds her place as a nurse in a military hospital. Jordan, 25, falls for a beautiful widow on a recovery mission in Virginia. All hope to find peace in the past.

But billionaire Robert Devereaux has no interest in giving the Lanes even a moment's rest. Shortly after Mark's betrayal, he sends an assassin to 1865 to retrieve his property and set matters straight.

Like most of my previous works, The Lane Betrayal combines history, romance, adventure, and multiple points of view. It also features my first true villain and cameos by Abraham Lincoln, Mary Lincoln, Edwin Stanton, John Hay, Walt Whitman, and John Wilkes Booth.

The Lane Betrayal is the first book in the Time Box series, which will span 1865 to 1963. The novel, available as a Kindle book on Amazon.com and its international sites, goes on sale today.

Review: Where Crawdads Sing

Like others, I suspect, I put this one off. I prefer other genres and wasn't eager to jump into a long novel when I was in the middle of producing my own. But 4.8 stars on Amazon and Oprah's blessing are hard to ignore, so I made an exception. I'm glad I did. I found Where the Crawdads Sing, the debut novel by Delia Owens, every bit as poignant and captivating as most readers say it is.

The story begins in 1952, when Kya Clark, a girl of six, is abandoned by her mother, her siblings, and finally her abusive father. After trying and failing to make her peace with the outside world, Kya raises herself in a shack in the wilds of coastal North Carolina. What follows is a coming-of-age story that spans two decades.

The story is implausible at times. Kya, dubbed "The Marsh Girl" by her many detractors, never gets sick, even though she has never been immunized. She never gets pregnant, despite dabbling in unprotected sex. And she becomes the published author of several reference wildlife books, despite the lack of a formal education.

But these flaws did not hinder my enjoyment of a story that grabbed my attention from the first chapter. The depictions of life in a small Southern town in the 1950s and 1960s are first-rate. So are the descriptions of the plants and animals of the exotic and sometimes forbidding wetlands. Throughout the book, Kya, a recluse, is at one with nature, the one thing that never betrays her.

Crawdads is also a riveting murder mystery. When Chase Andrews, a philandering former football star who is obsessed with Kya, is found dead under an abandoned fire tower, all eyes turn toward the beautiful marsh girl. The whodunit is not solved until the last chapter.

I would recommend Crawdads to anyone who loves a good story, particularly one with an appealing, strong-willed female protagonist. I look forward to seeing the movie version. Rating: 4.5/5.

Taking a second look at history

The row houses of F Street were more colorful and ornate. Ford's Theatre had a smaller lobby and a bigger stage. Even the forests of Northern Virginia were different. They had more oaks, fewer pines, and much greater density than I expected. But that's why I went. As I wrote last year after visiting the settings for three novels, writers cannot get a true feel of a place without seeing it in person. So this week I traveled once again to Washington, D.C. and put some lingering questions to rest.

Unlike in August, when I gave the capital a brief inspection, I was thorough. I walked miles of the city's streets, visited important historic sites, and did the kind of research one can only do in the District of Columbia. As a result, I learned a lot about places that will be featured in The Lane Betrayal, my current work in progress.

Among other things, I learned that row houses are cool. Really cool. Even those without black-wrought-iron gates, sash windows, and ornamental facades evoked a much earlier time. So did Ford's Theatre, which is still a functioning performance hall. Though President Lincoln's suite was less lavish than I imagined, the theater itself was grand. I had no difficulty picturing the place on April 14, 1865, when it became a tragic footnote in American history.

Like Ford's, the Round Robin Bar, with its circular bar and oak-paneled walls, has changed little in a century and a half. Part of the luxurious Willard Hotel, it is still a go-to site in the capital.

For that reason, I set three chapters in the fabled bar. I set one in the Star Saloon, where John Wilkes Booth mulled his plot over a bottle of whiskey. Now a commercial space, the saloon is adjacent to Ford's.

When I wasn't visiting venues, I was researching them at several museums and the Library of Congress. Among my top finds were old maps of Maryland and Virginia, native plant guides, and information on early settlements in what became the federal city. I plan to include what I found in the novel.

The Lane Betrayal, the first book of the Time Box series, is now in its second revision. I hope to publish the novel in early April.