‘WHIPPOORWILL‘ by R.L. BARTRAM
TEASER LINES
Ceci came to an abrupt halt. A chill swept through her. The spectacle suggested something too terrible to contemplate. She shrank against Hecubah, clutching her hand. For what seemed like an eternity, no one spoke. Then Ceci drew a deep breath and let it slowly out, into the thunderous silence.
“Have they been hurt?” she asked. It was the best she could hope for.
Joshua hung his head.
Ceci winced, as Hecubah’s hand crushed hers.
“All of them?” she heard herself say. “Dead. The baby too?”
Joshua nodded.
The very core of her being shuddered under the hammer blow. She felt her soul tear loose, crashing around inside her, like a bird frantically beating its wings against the bars of a cage. Until, all that remained was a void inhabited by some formless, nameless thing. A dark creature, born of pain and anguish, that assaulted the shattered bastions of her heart, seeking to dominate and enslave her. The moment she knew her family were dead, a part of her died with them.
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‘WHIPPOORWILL‘ – The Premise
Barely fourteen, Ceci Prejean is a tomboy running wild in the hot Louisiana summer. After breaking the nose of a local boy, her father decides to enlist the aid of Hecubah, a beautiful Creole woman, with a secret past, who takes Ceci in hand and turns her into a lady.
Now, eighteen-year-old Ceci meets and falls passionately in love with a handsome young northerner, Trent Sinclaire. Trent is a cadet at the West Point military academy. He acts as if he knows Ceci. They begin a torrid affair, even as the southern states begin to secede from the Union.
Only weeks before their wedding, the Confederate army attacks Fort Sumter and the civil war begins. Trent is called to active service in the north, leaving Ceci heartbroken in the south. Swearing vengeance on the union, after the untimely death of her family at the fall of New Orleans, Ceci meets with infamous spy master, Henry Doucet. He initiates her into the shadowy world of espionage. After her failure to avert the catastrophe at Gettysburg, Ceci infiltrates the White House.
There, she comes face to face with Abraham Lincoln, a man she’s sworn to kill. Forming a reckless alliance with the actor, John Wilkes Booth, she is drawn deeper into the plot to assassinate the President of the United States. A Confederate spy in love with a Union officer, her next decision will determine whether she lives or dies…
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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Ambrosia @ ‘The Purple Booker‘
Anyone can take part, by just doing the following:
Grab your current read.
Open to a random page.
- Share a couple of “teaser” sentences, from somewhere on that page.
- Be careful not to share “spoiler” sentences.
- Remember to share the title and author too.
- Head on over to ‘The Purple Booker’ and leave a link to your post, so that others can share it and you can share other people’s.
It would be great if you then decided to leave a comment for Ambrosia, as we all like to receive them and are interested in sharing your thoughts.
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