Come With Me to Gettysburg!

If you are within driving distance of Gettysburg, write this down: on Saturday, June 29, from 1-4pm, I will be signing copies of Widow of Gettysburg at the Seminary Ridge Museum in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania! This day will be the kick-off to a week of festivities commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. See the schedule of events here. (Note: Though my book signing is not on here, I promise it's happening. We just nailed down the date yesterday.) For information on other events, including re-enactments, click here.

If you can't make it to Gettysburg this summer, don't worry. Award-winning author Peter Leavell says that reading Widow of Gettysburg, wherever you are, "will make you feel like you’ve lived in Gettysburg during the Civil War." :) I am really attached to the building which houses the Seminary Ridge Museum. It has also been called Old Dorm, or Schmucker Hall, and it was the main Lutheran Theological Seminary building on campus aside from faculty houses during the battle in 1863. Aside from its historical significance (its cupola offered strategic viewpoints for the armies, and the building was used as a hospital for months after the battle), I love it for a few more personal reasons, too:

1. This was the building where I researched the archives of the Adams County Historical Society in 2010. Though I was looking for stories for a nonfiction book (Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front), the drama I encountered in those archives planted the seed in my mind that grew into the Heroines Behind the Lines Civil War series of historical novels.
2. I set a scene from Widow of Gettysburg in this building.
3. One of my characters in Widow of Gettysburg was a former student here at the Lutheran Theological Seminary.
4. This building is on the cover of my Gettysburg novel.
5. The chief operating officer of the Seminary Ridge Museum, Denise Doyle, has been an instrumental historical consultant as I was writing and fact-checking the book.

Both Denise Doyle, from the Seminary Ridge Museum, and Mavis Starner, from the Adams County Historical Society have read Widow of Gettysburg. Here's what they had to say about it.

“Steeped in sorrow and death yet infused with resiliency, Jocelyn Green’s Widow of Gettysburg is a gripping depiction of individuals brought together by war. Ms. Green’s thorough research and poignantly written storyline delicately weaves a compelling description of Liberty and Bella, who could have been enveloped and trampled by the ubiquitous prejudice and revulsion around them; they could have allowed these scars to define them. Instead, as did the community and eventually the nation, these women’s unswerving faith and inner strength took center stage enriching their spirit, enhancing their ties, and embracing their ownership of their personal struggle for a new birth of freedom.” ~Denise Doyle, chief operations officer, Seminary Ridge Museum, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania   “While the leading characters are fictitious, they represent a combination of real people who lived through, and witnessed, one of America’s most crucial events of the Civil War – the Battle of Gettysburg.  Through their eyes you experience what the citizens, especially the women, of Gettysburg endured during those hot July days. Jocelyn Green’s detailed research and literary talent combine to transport the reader to another place and time . . .  so real that you can feel the earth shake with each roar of the cannon; see the hundreds of wounded soldiers as they lie in the mud and dirt with missing arm or leg; hear the wounded as they cry out for help and water; smell the rotting flesh and carcasses of dead men and horses yet unburied; and taste the gunpowder as it lays heavy on the air. You will be pulled into a place and story that will not let you go until the very end – and leave you wanting more.  Beware!  Once you begin reading this book you will not be able to put it down.” ~Mavis Starner, Volunteer at Adams County Historical Society, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

I hope to see you in Gettysburg on June 29, but if you can't make it, keep in mind I can still sign your book for you through the wonders of the U.S. Postal Service! Visit this page to see how to get a signed bookplate for any of my books. Finally, let's step back almost 150 years ago together--for about 90 seconds--through this book trailer, below.

Widow of Gettysburg releases May 1. For more information about the Heroines Behind the Lines series, visit this Web site. Pre-order below: