War, family, secrets, danger and responsibility. Seven New Hampshire authors tackle it all in their recently released books. Here’s a look at the new titles:
Readers will discover that casualties of war are not just soldiers killed on the battlefield or civilians caught in the crossfire. The fiction novel was recently released by Elizabeth Marro.
Marro sets her first book, Casualties, in a New Hampshire town not unlike Jefferson, where she grew up.
Ruth Nolan is living in California when her son, Robbie, returns from serving with the Marines in Iraq. He seems fine at first.
The day Robbie returns home, Ruth must work late, managing PR for a top military defense contractor. When she finally gets home, Robbie has disappeared. The next morning, he’s found dead in a motel, apparently a suicide. In her grief, Ruth returns to the home in New Hampshire that Robbie loved.
In the White Mountains, Ruth must confront her demons: her past, her choices, war, work and her son.
“It’s a mother’s story,” Marro said. “But it is also a story being played out among families of veterans even now, years after soldiers and Marines returned home from deployment to combat zones.”
Marro will have book signings and readings at RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth on April 21 at 6:30 p.m. and Morgan Hill Bookstore in New London on April 28 at 3 p.m.
Marek Bennett of Henniker has also released a wartime book.
His new graphic novel The Civil War Diary of Freeman Colby is the true story of the teacher-turned-soldier, who enlists in the Union Army to keep an eye on his younger brother, Newton, and on the “rebel traitors.”
The comic strip-style book gives a perspective of average citizens caught up in the nation’s deadliest war.
Freeman Colby was an actual Henniker teacher and soldier. There’s a road named for him in West Henniker, Bennett said, and the house he lived in still stands. You can find his name on the town’s Civil War memorial and the graves for him and his wife in the town cemetery.
The Henniker Historical Society has transcripts of Colby sharing his diary and copies of his letters.
Bennett said the graphic novel text is almost all word-for-word what Colby shared. The art is Bennett’s own interpretation.
Bennett is still planning book signings. To find events or to purchase the book, you can visit his website, marekbennett.com.
Bennett is also the author of the webcomic Live Free and Draw, Slovakia: Fall in the Heart of Europe, and the newspaper strip Mimi’s Doughnuts. He also plays in a 19th-century music group and does residency programs with schools and libraries.
Fire historian Gerald Bourgeois of Laconia was an educator and firefighter for many years. He worked for a fire company in Westerly, R.I.; a fire commissioner in Attleboro, Mass., and was a call dispatcher in Plymouth.
Inspired in part by Concord’s 250th anniversary last year, Bourgeois recently released Wherever Flames May Rage: The History of the Concord Fire Department, the first book to detail the history of the department in depth.
The book chronicles development in the capital city from 1807, through when the first hand-engine company was incorporated through the motorization of the force in the early 1900s up to today. There are detailed accounts of significant events and notable figures in the department, along with more than 100 photographs.
Bourgeois has also penned five publications collectively called the Red Pages of Firefighting, which contain facts about departments in New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.
First, she adopted two sons. Then, she founded JustAdopt, an organization to help find homes for orphaned children. Now, Susan Silverman, formerly of Bedford, has authored Casting Lots, which shares these stories.
The book is mostly a memoir. Silverman recounts her childhood growing up in Bedford, with grandparents in Concord and Manchester. It goes on to recount meeting her husband, having two daughters and adopting their first son, Adar Daniel, from Ethopia. About four years later, she gives birth to another daughter. After that, they decide to adopt once more. Silverman and her husband attempt to adopt from India, but preference for adoption is given to Indians. Ultimately, they adopt again from Ethiopia, a son named Zamir Gidon.
Most of the book details normal family life. Sometimes the adoption process throws unique curveballs, such as when Adar tells Silverman as a toddler that he prayed for God to make him white but it didn’t work.
In an author’s note at the end of the book, Silverman takes a wider look at adoption and what she calls the “adoption cliff.” She shares there’s an estimated 153 million children without parents. However, there’s been a steep decline in adoptions by U.S. parents from 22,991 in 2004 to just 2,200 in 2013. She also shares what barriers she sees to adoption.
Silverman will speak at Gibson’s Bookstore on Sunday at 3 p.m.
It seems a universal truth that all children want some sort of pet before knowing the amount of responsibility that comes with owning a pet.
Sarah Matte of Farmington recently released A Bunny for Bobbi, a children’s book that teaches kids how to take care of a pet.
Bobbi always wanted a pet, but has never owned one before. When she finally gets a rabbit to be her friend and play with, she finds out how much work it is. Bobbi must decide whether she can handle those responsibilities or if she will lose her new pet.
For 18 years, Jey and her twin sister without a name and their father have hidden a truth from the world. The sisters are twins, but not identical. Jey has dark eyes; her sister blue eyes. The unnamed sister is also an other-worldly being called a Redwing.
At birth, their father, believing the small child could be good and not the wicked creature history described, spared his daughter from the prescribed sentence of death. Jey’s lived life openly as an only child. Her sister’s stayed hidden the attic until the open of Adi Rule’s new novel The Hidden Twin.
Jey and her sister swap places and the young Redwing’s powers are triggered for the first time after being ambushed by priests suspicious of her abilities. Her powers also attract attention from underground rebels and a vengeful cult. After Jey goes missing, the sister discovers a plot to awaken a dormant volcano.
Will the hidden twin fulfill the myths of a monster or is she the last hope for a city on the verge of destruction?
Rule is a New Hampshire resident and has previously spoken at MainStreet BookEnds and Gibson’s Bookstore.
Dorothea Jensen of Hopkinton released another historical novel for young readers, A Buss from Lafayette.
Fifty years after the Revolutionary War, in 1825, the last surviving general Lafayette embarks on a tour of all 24 states. In Jensen’s story, the general meets a fictional 14-year-old Clara Hargraves. She’s resentful her father married her “prissy” aunt Priscilla, who is now pregnant and she’s been teased about her flaming red hair.
During Lafayette’s visit, Clara learns more about her family, the boy who teases her and about the war. Her problems may not be as terrible as she feels.
Jensen says the story was inspired by an older woman who claims her great-grandmother was bussed, or kissed, by the general during his 6,000-mile tour.
Jensen will hold a book launch party April 22 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at the Hopkinton Town Library, with refreshments, children’s activities, readings and signings.