Killer Debt Book Release 9 May 2018, and Thanks to Backers!

Killer Debt book cover300x450Killer Debt will be officially released on 9 May 2018. You’re invited to McIntyre’s Bookstore in Pittsboro, NC at 6:30 that evening to purchase your copy and hear how a subplot in the book fictionalizes one of North Carolina’s little-known historical events during 1781. Light refreshments provided.

Again, many thanks to all the wonderful folks who backed my crowdfunding campaign in March. Total raised: $1900. The following people backed the campaign at the $35 level or higher:

German Arciniegas
Martha Coleman
Beverly Gotthardt
Robert and Heather Gruber (executive producers)
Rhonda Lane
Norma Luther
Marsha McDonald
Margaret Millings
Carole Weiss
Nina N. Williams
and two people who wished to remain anonymous.

Action at the 2018 Guilford Courthouse Battle Reenactment

Last Saturday I trekked to the annual Guilford Courthouse battle reenactment near Greensboro, North Carolina. The park is large, and between checking out the camps, sutlers, and battle, I estimate that I hiked around eight miles that day.

Fusiliers lining up in the British campFusiliers lining up in the British camp.

Video: Fusiliers executing a right wheel.

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Continentals retreat with the Crown forces in pursuit and visible in the center through the treesContinentals retreat with the Crown forces in pursuit and visible in the center through the trees.

Video: Two cool smoke rings from British artillery fire.

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British cavalryBritish cavalry.

Video: Final Crown forces charge.

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122% Funded — YESSS!

My backers are the best! Thank you, and keep the love coming!

Killer Debt book coverI’m running a bit behind on updates; last week I was organizing all my 2017 tax information for my accountant. Since I last posted, Ben Steelman at the Wilmington Star-News posted a great article about Killer Debt (although he misnamed my detective as “Matthew” instead of “Michael,” and the house on the front cover is actually the Nash-Hooper House in Hillsborough, NC). Also, Christine Gentes reviewed Killer Debt on her blog.

Check out these recent online interviews with me!

Courtney Carter’s blog
Destination Mystery blog
Map Your Mystery blog

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114% Funded — Wow!

Killer Debt book cover

We’re halfway through the campaign and have exceeded the original goal! Many thanks to my wonderful backers and the folks who have worked magic with social media. Please keep the momentum going. Let your friends, family, and associates know about Michael Stoddard and the campaign.

Early kudos for Killer Debt are coming in. Courtney Carter writes: “A thrilling new addition to the Michael Stoddard mystery series!” Thanks, Courtney!

Check out this fun clip from a few years ago, the 33rd Light Company of Foot executing a right wheel at the annual Battle of Camden reenactment in South Carolina.

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Day 5 and 93% Funded!

Killer Debt book coverMy crowdfunding campaign for Killer Debt, book #4 of the Michael Stoddard American Revolution Mystery series, is now at 93% funded only five days into the campaign. Thank you, everyone! I’ll post at least one “Stretch Goal” shortly. Please continue to spread the word about the campaign so we can reach 100%.

Read my interview on the Mysteristas blog if you’re curious why I set my series in Revolutionary North Carolina. I also have a guest post on the HFAC eBooks blog about why there’s much more to the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution than the Fourth of July 2026.

Thanks for following!

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Crowdfunding Campaign for Killer Debt is Live!

Killer Debt book coverI’m happy to announce that Killer Debt, Michael Stoddard American Revolution Mystery #4, is now available to pre-order. My campaign provides visibility to Revolutionary America’s history as well as to my award-winning series.

Killer Debt makes a great gift for you or any friends or family members who enjoy reading historical fiction and mysteries. Check out all the perks on the site. And look for links to the first chapter of Killer Debt in PDF form and to a video of me reading the first chapter at IllogiCon 2018 in January.

Relevant History author Anne Louise Bannon interviewed me on her blog earlier this week. You don’t want to miss it. I discuss why I chose to make the hero of my series a redcoat.

Thanks for following!

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The American Revolution from the “Other” Side

Killer Debt book coverAs a prelude to the crowdfunding campaign for my upcoming mystery Killer Debt, which starts on Thursday, author Anne Louise Bannon interviews me on her blog, where I discuss why I chose to make the hero of my series a redcoat.

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My Time Machine

From the Vault Note: This essay first appeared in a slightly different form on Southern Writers Magazine’s blog, April 2013.

Readers often comment that my stories immerse them fully in the fictional world I’ve created. Achieving that “You Are Here” feeling is a challenge for most authors. Those who write historical fiction wish they had a time machine, a way to experience what the past was like.

33rd Light Redcoats at BrattonsvilleI write crime fiction set during the eighteenth century, in the American War of Independence. I’ve found that time machine.

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Redcoat and Suzanne AdairWhen I started researching this period almost twenty years ago, I quickly realized that if I intended to create believable fiction about people who’d lived more than two hundred years earlier, reading books on the topic and interviewing subject matter experts wouldn’t cut it at helping me capture the period flavor. A desire to experience the everyday challenges my characters would have faced and how their world smelled, tasted, and sounded fueled my interest in becoming a Revolutionary War reenactor.

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Cooking at CamdenMy sons and I spent many weekends camped at historical battlegrounds during reenactment events. We slept in white canvas army tents with no mosquito screens, and we dressed in clothing made of wool and linen. Our menu was limited by what meals we could prepare over a wood fire. Food occasionally got scorched. Most of the time, running water, flush toilets, and heat or air-conditioning were unavailable.

I learned to start a fire from flint and steel. Not until I’d done so did I comprehend the impact of natural variables, such as wind and humidity, on establishing a fire when you don’t even have the convenience of matches. Try starting a fire with flint and steel on a windy, wintry night.

Continentals and Redcoats at Guilford CourthouseI also learned to load and fire a musket with powder only, like reenactors on the battlefield. Nothing I’d read prepared me for the noise, weight, heat, or reload time of the musket. The one time I fired a ball, I saw the way it could have ricocheted off trees and killed someone. How often did that happen in woodland skirmishes hundreds of years ago?

And I learned to move in a petticoat. However no reference book prepared me for how quickly the wind whipped my petticoat into the campfire at one event. Did you know that being burned was one of the top causes of death for women in the eighteenth century?

I’m a woman of the twenty-first century. I take technology for granted. Convenience and accessibility underpin my culture and shape my values and reactions. But during the Revolutionary War, very little was convenient or accessible. Danger and scarcity shaped decisions, especially for the middle and lower classes.

Indian at CamdenWe’re out of touch with the hardships our ancestors endured to stay alive. My challenge is to bridge that gap in my fiction. The lessons I’ve learned from reenacting inform the crafting of my fictional world. Without the experience of having lived history via the time machine of reenacting, I wouldn’t be able to provide such a believable and captivating escape for readers.

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The Invasion of Virginia: 1781

Mike Cecere author photoRelevant History welcomes back Michael Cecere, who was raised in Maine but moved to Virginia in 1990 where he discovered a passion for American History. Mr. Cecere has taught U.S. History for nearly three decades and is an avid Revolutionary War reenactor and writer who lectures throughout the country on the American Revolution. He is the author of thirteen books on the American Revolution and nearly as many articles. His books focus primarily on the role that Virginians played in the Revolution.

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Lexington and Concord, Trenton, Saratoga, and Yorktown—these are the Revolutionary War battles that are taught in every school district in America and that many Americans are familiar with. These key events, all of which happen to be American victories in our struggle of independence, spanned six years and contribute to the mistaken impression held by many that American success in the Revolutionary War was inevitable.

What is overlooked by many are the numerous American defeats and setbacks that occurred in between these important victories: the suffering and struggles and yes, numerous losses that Americans fighting for their rights and independence endured between 1775 and 1783. My latest book, Invasion of Virginia, 1781, sheds a long overdue light upon one crucial military campaign in Virginia that occurred prior to Yorktown and that significantly contributed to what became the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War, the siege of Yorktown. To put it bluntly, we do not get to Yorktown without experiencing the Virginia Campaign of 1781.

Defeat and treason
The situation looked quite bleak for supporters of American independence in late 1780. The British had successfully gained control of most of Georgia and South Carolina (destroying two American armies sent to resist them at Charlestown and Camden) and the British commander in the South, General Lord Charles Cornwallis, had turned his attention to North Carolina. To the north, General Washington and his army was stunned by the betrayal of General Benedict Arnold, the hero of Saratoga and one of Washington’s best generals. Disappointed by insufficient French support, which left Washington too weak to strike the British in New York, and fearful that others in his army might follow Benedict Arnold’s example, the American commander and likely most supporters of independence were anxious for what lay ahead.

The British commander in America, General Henry Clinton, was pleased by the success of his new southern strategy, and sent a force under General Alexander Leslie to Virginia in October to assist General Cornwallis in his subjugation of North Carolina. The surprising defeat of a large force of Tories at King’s Mountain undermined Cornwallis’s plans for North Carolina and caused him to order Leslie southward to South Carolina.

General Clinton was not pleased by this development; he believed that control of the Chesapeake Bay was crucial for gaining control of the south, so in December he sent a new British force of 1,600 men under Brigadier-General Benedict Arnold to Virginia with orders to establish a secure post in Portsmouth and destroy and disrupt whatever military supplies that he could that were destined for the American southern army in North Carolina.

British attention turns to Virginia
Arnold’s expedition to Virginia in early 1781 was enormously successful for the British. Arnold quickly secured Portsmouth and sailed up the James River against virtually no resistance from the largest of the thirteen American states. War fatigue and mismanagement suppressed Virginia’s ability to confront Arnold, and his troops plundered their way past Richmond, destroying vast amounts of military and civilian supplies.

Arnold returned to Portsmouth before January ended and for a time it looked like he had placed his force in extreme danger for Virginia’s militia forces gathered, and then a French naval force arrived, but they were soon chased away by the arrival in March of General William Phillips with 2,500 reinforcements. General Clinton was determined to sever Virginia’s lifeline to the Carolinas, and General Phillips was to see this done. He led a strong force back up the James River, where he confronted Virginia militia near Williamsburg and in Petersburg, but his effort to occupy Richmond was thwarted by the arrival of General LaFayette with nearly 1,000 American continentals, the cream of General Washington’s army (picked light infantry).

Unfortunately for General LaFayette, the arrival of General Cornwallis in Virginia in May (following his pyrrhic victory at Guilford Courthouse) and new British and German reinforcements from New York increased the number of British troops in Virginia at over 7,000, far more than LaFayette’s small force could handle. What ensued was several days of a cat and mouse chase; Cornwallis pursed LaFayette, but not very aggressively, while LaFayette grudgingly fled northward towards overdue reinforcements under General Anthony Wayne of Pennsylvania.

In early June Cornwallis broke off his pursuit and sent detachments to raid a supply depot at Point of Fork and the Virginia Legislature (which had fled to Charlottesville). The timely warning of Jack Jouett spared more of the assembly, as well as Governor Jefferson, from capture, but the raid demonstrated that British troops were capable of appearing almost anywhere in the Old Dominion.

By mid-June General Cornwallis was marching east, back towards Williamsburg. Along the way his rear guard skirmished a detachment of LaFayette’s troops who had raced all night to catch the British rear guard, near Spencer’s Ordinary. Two weeks later, it was Cornwallis’s turn to catch LaFayette off guard by luring him into a trap at Green Spring near Jamestown. Fortunately for the Americans, they were able to withdraw before they were completely trapped, but the fight was intense and costly.

Cornwallis’s return to Portsmouth in July and subsequent decision to occupy Yorktown (in compliance with General Clinton’s orders to establish a winter port for the British navy) provided an opportunity that General Washington seized upon in August when he learned that a large French naval force intended to sail to the Chesapeake Bay. General Washington’s concentration of forces outside of Yorktown was a tremendous logistical achievement and the allied victory over Cornwallis in mid-October the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War.

It is likely though, that none of it would have occurred had not events transpired in Virginia in 1781 the way they did.

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Invasion of Virginia 1781 book coverA big thanks to Michael Cecere.

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