Bøger udgivet af Katzenhaus Books

The early bird may get the worm, but a little mouse new to publishing is well-advised not to leap in without some careful planning. This anecdotal guide will help you follow the cracker crumb trails through the thickets of the book world without getting caught in a trap.

What could possibly go wrong? Laura Town and her life-long friend Ellen Murray joined the Port Royal Experiment in 1862 to test their abolitionist ideals against the realities of slaves abandoned by their owners in the Low Country of South Carolina. They hoped to find a place they could call home, as well as an outlet for their talents as schoolteacher and doctor. It seemed like a good idea at the time, until . . . Until they experienced the climate-violent storms spawned over the Atlantic, searing heat, air tainted by swamp gasses, cockroaches, bedbugs, swarming mosquitoes, and "no-see-ums" that left nasty bites in their wake. Until they met the slaves themselves-full of fear and resentment of white people caused by centuries of cruelty, slaves who had never seen the outside world, slaves whose superstitions included breath-sucking night hags, evil graybeards living in local trees, and unfree spirits rolling down the roads at night in balls of fire. Until the dedication of the missionaries found itself tested by lack of food, furniture, medicine, and the bare necessities of life. Until the unity of the abolitionist effort fell apart under the strains of religious differences and unrecognized prejudices. And until the combination of battle wounds and a raging smallpox epidemic made death their constant companion. Could these two independent women survive the Civil War and achieve their goal of turning slaves into citizens?

These are the people you don't read about in history books. A Harvard-educated New Englander. He was welcomed as a teacher by a school for apprentices in Charleston, South Carolina. But when his history lessons about the founding of America clashed with the pro-secession rhetoric of local slave-owners, he was out of a job. Can he find a way to reconcile his abolitionist sentiments with the practical need to support his family in a region whose economy is based on slavery? A wealthy Southern belle. She has always believed that her ancestors were benevolent slave-owners and that they treated their slaves with dignity and respect. Now she has inherited the family plantations, only to see the institution of slavery come under attack as an unmitigated evil. The coming of the Civil War threatens her land, her children, her marriage, and the values that have always sustained her. How much will she be willing to sacrifice in order to help her family survive? A female slave. She was given to her mistress when they were both very small because they shared a common grandfather - a fact that everyone knew and no one talked about. The war offers her a promise of freedom as well as the prospect of a bittersweet separation from her beloved cousin. Will the bonds of family stretch or break? A Confederate soldier. He supported secession and eagerly volunteered for the Army, believing, like most young men, that he was invincible. And like too many of those young men, he was wounded and taken prisoner. The aftermath of his war experience left him with wounds far deeper than those that caused the amputation of his leg. Can he conquer the pain, the flashbacks, the disability, and the nightmares that keep him incapacitated and unable to return to his former life? The newly-weds. The couple married in haste, realizing that the coming of war might mean a long period of separation. But the young wife did not expect to receive a black-bordered letter telling her that her husband had been killed in battle. Now she faces life in wartime as a widow and the mother of newborn twins. She can return to her family or seek to make a a new life for herself. Which way will she turn? The children. Uprooted from their home and school by a series of family disasters, they face an uncertain future. The teenage boy gives up his dream of becoming a dairy farmer. With tears streaming down his face, he begs his cows to run away because Confederate soldiers are confiscating all cattle as food for the army. His brothers and sisters struggle to adapt to new conditions of poverty, hunger, and hard work. And they watch with fear as those circumstances threaten the stability of their parents' marriage. Will the family stay together or scatter as their friends and neighbors have done? An educated ex-slave. Despite his free status, he realizes that freedom is just a word -- meaningless without respect in the eyes of the community and without the ability to interact on an equal basis with those who once were his owners. Will his freedom really liberate him or will it destroy him? America's Civil War was more than a political disaster. It was a human tragedy, and everyone - North and South, young and old, black and white, rich and poor - everyone was caught up in that broken world. Yet somehow the victims held on to the hope that love for one another could mend the tears in the fabric of their lives. These are their stories.

LEFT BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD: Characters in Search of a Novel What do they have in common? Some of these people have appeared in A Scratch with the Rebels and Beyond All Price. Others made cameo appearances in The Road to Frogmore. All of them are here because, even though their stories were fascinating in their own right, they did not fit into the novels where they first appeared. These are characters and events that were literally "left by the side of the road" as other historical novels took shape. These vignettes allow them to speak for themselves. Together they provide a multi-faceted glimpse into the stories behind the Civil War. Slaves abandoned by their owners when the Union Army invaded coastal South Carolina . . . Government officials charged with reorganizing captured territory . . . Army officers and the women who accompanied them . . . Free blacks determined to rescue their brothers and sisters from slavery . . . An opera singer with a penchant for pornography . . . Abolitionists with competing visions for the future of newly-freed slaves . . . A talented and sympathetic nurse who was once a runaway, a fugitive from justice, and a battered wife . . . Carolyn Schriber's novels have been praised as "the stuff of a great book ... storytelling yes, but also a subtle message that eats at you...and makes you go seek out more information ... and gives you something to talk about over dinner." (Joyce Faulkner, Past President of the Military Writers Society of America.)

Little Sarah Chomsky decided to become a teacher in first grade. Twenty-six years later, she is Dr. Sarah Chomsky, about to start her second year of teaching at Smoky Mountain University. She has a five-year plan for earning tenure as a college history professor, but the world is determined to distract her from her path. On campus, three of Sarah's students face serious problems that threaten to drag their sympathetic professor into their private lives. An American-born teenager-a brilliant student but challenged by her social and cultural inexperience-struggles to protect her family of illegal immigrants. A football star suffers a traumatic brain injury and finds himself unable to cope with the changes in his life. Now he stands accused of a crime he did not commit. And a privileged young woman shows signs of being the victim of a psychological, as well as physical, abusive relationship. In her personal life, Sarah has written a children's book about her little black cat, and the two of them are much in demand from local bookstores and libraries. Her policeman boyfriend has a distracting new job as district attorney, while his parents cannot understand why he does not settle down and marry that "nice Jewish girl." A whistle-blower threatens their cozy little town when he warns of toxic chemicals in the local water supply, and someone ends up as a murder victim. Can Sarah avoid becoming involved in these crises, or will they pull her away from her lifetime goal?

We first met Henrietta in 1832 and followed her as she left England to marry a South Carolina cotton broker. We watched her learn to be a proper wife, a mother, a businesswoman, and eventually a widow, handling every conflict through a series of compromises. Now it's 1859. The country stands on the brink of Civil War, and Henrietta is about to learn another important lesson: Every compromise comes with its own set of consequences.Henrietta knows she will never fit into the ranks of Charleston's high society because of her family's commercial activities and her foreign birth. Nevertheless, social mavens will expect her to follow their rules of behavior. She will try to be soft-spoken, uninvolved in political or commercial affairs, and subservient to the male members of her family. She will accept the rules that women should not own property, hold opinions contrary to those of her husband, work outside of the home, vote, or speak in public. Such restrictions grate against Henrietta's English upbringing, but she will break the rules only when she finds a way to do so legally.Motherhood presents Henrietta with a different set of restrictions. Although she was firmly set against allowing her children to be brought up by slaves, she soon learned to rely on trusted servants to care for them and handle their early education. And now that her daughters are grown, she finds herself pushing them to conform to the same social patterns against which she herself struggled. Above all other questions, however, there looms a family secret that could destroy Henrietta's relationship with her daughters. And there is no solution except to perpetuate a lie.Upon the early death of her husband, Henrietta found herself the major stockholder in the family business. She seemed to switch effortlessly from Southern lady to hard-driven businesswoman. In that effort, she now benefits from a booming cotton marketplace. The weather has yielded bumper crops, while cotton buyers, skittishly fearing a wartime slowdown, are eager to pay high prices to stockpile the raw cotton they need for their textile industry. For several years, Henrietta has been able to keep the family business returning high profits without sacrificing her femininity. How long the cotton boom will last, however, is another question she does not want to handle.Henrietta's life is a juggling act. She balances proper widowhood against an undeniable attraction to an eligible bachelor without raising a single society eyebrow. She praises her daughters' independence while hoping they will marry someone who will give them a foothold among Charleston's most prominent families. She can defend the principles of abolition while her household slaves do her bidding. She can fly not just two, but three, flags-the American citizenship she accepted when she married a traveler from abroad, her pride in being a resident of South Carolina and Charleston in particular, and the loyalty she retains for her homeland.The prospect of war, however, changes everything. Henrietta will find that she can no longer maintain that middle-of-the-road position she has held in every aspect of her life. That American flag becomes a symbol, not of proud independence, but of tyranny over her adopted state of South Carolina, and England teeters between supporting the Confederacy or acting to cause its downfall. She must decide whether to engage in blockade-running and smuggling or to act against the economic interests of her own company. As the schemes of espionage spin around her, she must protect one country she loves by betraying another. In her personal life, she must turn her back on a budding romance and protect a cluster of secrets that threaten to destroy her family. No compromise, no hedging of bets, she learns, can solve a problem without imposing a set of consequences.

"What Grows in your Garden" is a cozy mystery with a touch of romance. The main character is a Jewish woman just starting a career as a college history professor. The antagonist is a student with bipolar tendencies that sometimes make her violent. And the love interest is a police lieutenant with a law degree. This particular story will deal with poisonings and witchcraft--so there's also a cat! Dr. Sarah Chomsky harbors a romantic view of her new life as a college professor. She has a new apartment, an adorable new kitten, and a cozy office full of wonderful books. Sarah quickly becomes an inspiration to her undergraduate students and a friend and colleague of her graduate students. She has made new friends, including a police lieutenant with a law degree who fits her mother's description of "a nice Jewish boy." But someone has other plans for her. The serenity of the campus hides a stalker with a talent for gaslighting. Sarah soon must deal with unwanted gifts, polarizing debates among the faculty and students, hate speech keyed into the car doors of faculty members, unexpected illnesses and maladies, an April Fools prank gone astray, and an unexplained poisoning. As the problems increase in their intensity, Sarah will face a life-threatening show-down. Only by teaming up can Sarah and her policeman handle the final confrontation.

Nellie Chase Leath was very young when she offered her services as a nurse with the 100th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment. She had no references, no experience, and a limited education. She had eloped at the age of nineteen with a man she later described as a "drunk, a gambler, a liar, a forger, and a thief." She left him when he ordered her to become the madame of his new brothel. On her own, she had been supporting herself by mending costumes in the basement of a theater. Nellie enlisted because life in the midst of a war seemed safer than the one she had been living. So how did such a young woman manage to become head matron for one of the most devout regiments in the Union Army? She was strong enough to escape from a potentially abusive and resourceful enough to support herself in a world that did not easily accept single career women. She believed so passionately in her country's cause that she went off to war with the enthusiasm of a soldier. She displayed compassion and skill in her nursing duties. She took over the task of running a southern plantation with all the aplomb of a lady to the manor born. The men she cared for remembered her as their very own Florence Nightingale. And after the war, she found a new life, her self-esteem and her reputation intact. All that remained was for her to find a new theater in which to commit a final act of self-sacrifice and martyrdom.

"Write these things on a rock!" In this updated version of The Second Mouse Gets the Cheese: How to Avoid the Traps of Self-Publishing, best-selling author Carolyn Schriber takes a closer look at the self-publishing innovations that have opened the gates to mainstream book publication. In twelve detailed chapters, she leads the writer through the self-publishing process, from that first decision to forego traditional publishing, through setting up a business and office, choosing the right software and social media platforms, planning the book, writing the first draft, revising, editing, choosing the best publishing partners, and finally to the book launch and marketing phase. Her words are still based on her personal experiences and still touched with her wise advice and gentle humor. Among her new rules to write on a rock are these: -Treat your writing like a business. -Words are meant to be read. -Software does not come in one-size-fits-all. -Don't start your author journey until you know where you are going. -Do your homework. -Watch your language, -Your cranky old English teacher knew her stuff. -Remember that your words (and mistakes) will outlive you. -Don't be fooled by promises of instant fame and fortune. -Choose your publishing partners wisely. -Give your readers what they love at a price they can afford.

Jamey Grenville was in the habit of rescuing women. He stepped up to save a Pennsylvania farm when his future wife's parents were killed in a tragic accident. He found a new home for his unmarried sister when a horrendous earthquake drove her from the family residence in Charleston, South Carolina. And he thought he had provided the perfect safety net for his eight daughters by bringing together a mother who loved them to distraction and a doting aunt to whom they could turn when they felt like running away from home. It might even have worked-if the two women had not been so very different. Katerina was an outspoken Northern farm girl, whose talents ran to cooking, sewing, and taking care of everyone around her. Rebecca was a classic Southern belle, most at home surrounded by books and music. Katerina's greatest wish for her daughters was that they all would find handsome and generous husbands who would take care of them and protect them for all of their lives. Rebecca wanted to see the girls grow up to be strong and independent women, capable of supporting themselves and playing an active role in the world around them. Katerina looked back longingly to a nineteenth century in which values were strong and safety was promised to all who followed the rules. Rebecca leaned into the new challenges of the twentieth century, believing in the promises of the future. The stage was set for a lifetime of clashing values worthy of the feud of the legendary Kilkenny cats, who fought until there was nothing left of either one of them. Willingly or not, the two women lived in a rapidly changing world. Transportation moved from the horse and buggy to the Model T Ford, and dirt roads became paved highways. Family farms gave way to land speculators. Politicians quit arguing about government corruption and worried about prohibition and women's suffrage. Uncontrolled financial panics yielded to governmental regulation. Social power fell from the wealthy upper crust into the hands of the middle class, and labor unions took control from monopolies. Trains, airplanes, telegraphs, and radio waves picked up the news from around the globe and brought it into once isolated homes. Assassinations, earthquakes, revolutions, epidemics, the sinking of an unsinkable ocean liner, and a war that killed millions of men demanded their attention. Two women-tied irrevocably together by their love for Jamey Grenville and their devotion to his eight young daughters-battled the challenges, sometimes together, sometimes from opposite sides. But eventually those daughters grew up and spiraled away from the family center. The girls found their own husbands-a quiet schoolmaster, a coal miner, an ambitious farmer, a psychotic evangelist, a bootlegger, a stockbroker, a hardware salesman, an alcoholic newspaperman. They launched themselves on eight very different life paths, leaving their mother and their aunt at last with no one to lean on but each other.

When the the Civil War was over, Jonathan and Susan Grenville moved their family back to Charleston, only to find that peace was easier to declare than to practice. The war that tore a nation apart might have ended in 1865, but the most important battles remained to be fought. The North struggled to resume business as usual, while the South faced economic disaster. Old state constitutions needed to be re-written before the United States would take their former enemies back into the Union. Old political alliances collapsed, and the party of Lincoln faced a decline into unparalleled graft and corruption. And over everyone hovered the question of what to do with the thousands of former slaves whose status as citizens remained undefined. The following ten years gave rise to some of the most important constitutional developments in the history of the United States. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments would change the face of a nation, but the advances came at a terrible cost. In many ways, the transition would take another hundred years to reach fruition. And in the meantime, generations of black men learned that the pathway to becoming an African-American was a dangerous one. As the reunited country struggled with the problems of Reconstruction, the Grenvilles found themselves seeking new economic opportunities to replace the old cotton culture. Jonathan and Susan inherited vast land holdings that threatened to bury them under a deluge of back taxes unless they could find a new way to turn the lands into new revenue sources. Other family members decided to work together to meet the ever-present need for food by creating their own grocery business. And two of the family's enterprising young people took on a challenge to capture, tame, and recreate an ancient breed of horses that had adapted themselves to living wild in the swamps of South Carolina's Lowcountry. At the same time, the Grenvilles were swept up into political rivalries and civil riots that churned their peaceful streets into battlegrounds. Family ties shattered as their maturing children searched for their own answers to the questions of how best to live their lives. One son took refuge in a separatist religious community, while another became an armed advocate of White Supremacy. Susan's black cousins fought for equality and became targets of those who hated blacks. A daughter was swept into a romance with a black man. Daily life became a constant battle marked by visits from the Ku Klux Klan, threats of violence, and accusations of murder. Follow the Grenvilles as they navigate the difficult years between 1867 and 1877.