I published Cordelia’s Journey, my first book in the Pierce Family Saga series in 2015. In 2021, I finished the fifth book in that series. I started a spinoff series in 2022 with Uprooted: The Adventures of Hannah True, starring the aunt in the Pierce series. Now, I will be bringing characters from the original series together in my next book. My problem: I can’t remember all the details about all the characters in the first series. I am going to have to read them again and take notes this time.
I Don’t Want to Read Alone
I am starting my trip down memory lane with the first book, Cordelia’s Journey. If you would like to join me, the eBook is on a free promotion from February 13-17, 2026. Click here to get your copy.
Reputation, the fourth book in The Adventures of Hannah True, is set in January 1861, so as much as we would both like to, neither Hannah nor I can escape the Civil War. My problem with writing about the Civil War is how big it is in time and battles and geography. With all the possibilities, where will I find Hannah’s story?
Finding a Time
Research revealed that fraud was rampant in the Civil War, so much so that the False Claims Act of 1863 was signed into law by Abraham Lincoln on March 2, 1863. Corrupt contractors delivered shoddy merchandise in the form of uniforms and shoes that fell apart in rainy weather, sick horses and mules, grains infested with weevils, broken rifles, and more. The act provided rewards for information that led to bringing the fraudsters to justice. Upon the passing of the law, Vance Hollandar and his agency at once began investigating. Hannah, with two years of experience as a detective, is part of the team.
The novel will begin on July 10, 1863 at Aunt Gertrude’s house in New York City. Possible family members who will be part of the story are Cordelia, who is driving a photography wagon and taking battlefield photographs for Mathew Brady and Darcy Haynes, and Lucy, who has dressed as a man and joined Jake, the man she loves, on the front lines.
Finding a Place
Research is still needed to determine the place of the investigation. I am hoping for a Kansas/Missouri connection to bring the story closer to other members of the Pierce family.
Research
I found the following resource published in 1864. I couldn’t make a screenshot work, but the link will work. If you are interested, Click here
NURSE AND SPY
IN THE
UNION ARMY:
COMPRISING
The Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields.
By S. EMMA E. EDMONDS.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
Published by Subscription only by W. S. WILLIAMS & CO., HARTFORD, CONN. JONES BROS. & CO., PHILADELPHIA AND CINCINNATI. J. A. STODDARD & CO., CHICAGO, ILL. 1865.
Entered According to Act of Congress in the year 1864, By W. S. Williams & Company In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, For the District of Connecticut.
Reputation is everything to a woman and her team of detectives in 1861 St. Louis.
Reputation has arrived!
I have learned a lesson: Get books before scheduling a launch party. Today is August 30, and the book launch party at Middle Ground Books in Emporia, Kansas, is tomorrow, August 31 at 2pm. The books arrived today at 10:41 a.m.
Needless to say, I have been a total wreck all week.
Reputation is my thirteenth published novel, and I am having my first book launch on August 31 at 2 pm at Middle Ground Books in Emporia, Kansas.
So how did I launch the first twelve novels?
Previous new book announcement process:
Research and write book.
Publish book.
Order copies.
Receive copies.
Put copies in car.
Tell friends, “Hey, I have a new book!”
Friends say, “I’d like a copy,” and pay me.
I sign the book, toss it to them, and the launch is complete.
With the help of friends
While I have attended several book launches in the past, I’m still not sure what I should do at mine. Fortunately, my Emporia Writers friends, Tracy Million Simmons, Deb Irsik, and Lindsey Bartlett, have volunteered to help. With their experience in launching, I am less anxious and looking forward to my first book launch ever.
What is Reputation about anyway?
Reputation is everything to a woman and her team of detectives in 1861 St. Louis.
From the top floor of the Gates Hotel to the caves beneath it, the search for a murderer takes Hannah True and her team into situations that compromise their reputations as women and as novice detectives. Meeting a man alone might be enough to ruin her reputation, meeting him in a saloon would definitely destroy it.
Reputation is the fourth book in the Hannah True series. If you happen to be in Emporia, Kansas, on August 31, I’d love to have you celebrate its publication with me. If you prefer eBooks, visit my Reputation book page on Amazon or visit my Amazon Author page to view the first twelve.
Putting Reputation on pre-order on Amazon is more about giving myself a deadline I have to meet than it is about selling books. If I were not such a procrastinator, I could probably have written another dozen books by now.
The Final Cover
Notepad Contents
Deciding what items to list on the notepad and in what order of each Hannah True book is always a challenge. Now, as I look at what I have designated as “the final cover,” I’m wondering if it is. The current order is
poisoned pastry
hotel thefts
a dead owner
cave explosion
a missing detective
As I examine the list, I realize hotel thefts should come before poisoned pastry. The thefts come first in the novel and should on the notepad. Just when I think something is done, I find something else to fix. Make the above the next to final cover. Or maybe the next, next to final cover. The good news: I have until August 1 to upload the final book documents.
The Book Description
Reputation is everything to a woman and her team of detectives in 1861 St. Louis.
From the top floor of the Gates Hotel to the caves beneath it, the search to find a murderer takes Hannah True and her team into situations that compromise their reputations as women and as novice detectives. Meeting a man alone might be enough to ruin a reputation and meeting him in a saloon would definitely destroy it. Besides, Hannah has the reputation of her employer, the Hollandar Detective Agency, to think about.
When the owner of the Gates Hotel hires the Agency to find the person who has been stealing from guests, it appears to be a low danger job suitable for training three new female investigators. But upon discovering the man who hired them has been murdered, the stakes rise.
When the widow of the hotel owner hires a Pinkerton to crack the case, Hannah and her team have to rise to the challenge and show they can outshine the Pinkerton. They must reveal the murderer first, as well avoid becoming targets themselves.
The Formatted Novel
Here is the biggest challenge, and I am still tearing my hair out over getting both the eBook and paperback pages to conform with publishing requirements. However, I am determined to meet the deadline for the eBook pre-order. The paperback will be available on August 16.
The eBook preorder page is live now, and the publication date is August 5. Check it out here.
I started Book 4 of the Hannah True Series in January 2024. As a pantser (seat of the pants writer), I have done a lot of revising and checking to make sure I haven’t changed a crucial detail, or even a minor one, about Hannah and her band of detectives. That is an ongoing process.
Titles
I have changed is the title. I went from False Fronts to Buried Truths to Reputation. I settled on Reputation because previous books in the series have one-word titles and my main character, Hannah True, is concerned about hers
The Cover: A Work in Progress
Now I need a cover. When I was playing with Buried Truths as a title, I had a cover image in a cave. I’m not sure about that image for Reputation, but I’m hoping the book description will make it work.
Reputation Book Description
Reputation is everything to a woman and her team of detectives in 1861 St. Louis.
From the top floor of the Gates Hotel to the caves beneath it, the search to find a murderer takes Hannah True and her team into situations that compromise their reputations as women and as novice detectives. Meeting a man alone might be enough to ruin a reputation and meeting him in a saloon would definitely destroy it. Besides, they have the reputation of their employer, the Hollandar Detective Agency, to think about.
When Frank Gates, the owner of the Gates Hotel, hires the Agency to find the person who has been stealing from guests, it appears to be a low danger job suitable for training three new female investigators. But upon discovering the man who hired them has been murdered, the stakes rise.
When the widow of the hotel owner reveals her lack of faith in the Hollandar Agency and hires a Pinkerton to crack the case, Hannah and her team rise to the challenge, vowing to outshine the Pinkerton and solve the murder. Can Hannah and her team prove their skills, outwit the Pinkerton investigator and reveal the truth behind the murder of Frank Gates?
Publication Date
Publication of the eBook version of Reputation is scheduled for August 1, 2025. The paperback version will follow shortly after. At least, that’s the plan.
Three books in the Hannah True historical series are available now on Amazon and at Middle Ground Books in Emporia, Kansas. To celebrate my return to blogging, I am making the eBook version of Undercurrents, the second book in The Adventures of Hannah True series free on Amazon from May 24-May 27, 2025.
To get your free eBook copy of Undercurrents from May24-27, 2025, click here now.
Book 4 of the Series
At this moment, I have a rough draft of Book 4. My goal is to publish in August. However, I still don’t have a title or a cover. Here is what I know:
In January 1860, Hannah True, an apprentice detective with the Hollandar Detective Agency, joins her mentors to solve a series of thefts at the Gates Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. Nothing too dangerous, she thinks. But then the hotel owner dies of poisoning, there is an explosion in the cave beneath the hotel, and Hannah’s young co-investigator goes missing. With fear of her friend’s fate driving her, Hannah begins a frantic search for the missing woman.
Possible Titles:
Uncovered Submerged Subterranean Secrets Buried Truths Beneath the Surface
I am leaning toward the first two titles because the match the one-word titles of the first three book in the series. Have you a favorite or any thoughts on a great title? If so, leave a comment.
In my last post, I wrote about visiting St. Louis and the museums at the Arch and Forest Park to learn more about its history for my upcoming novel, the fourth book in the Adventures of Hannah True series. I learned enough to realize I needed a new name for the novel: That buildings with false fronts were not really a thing in 1861 St. Louis. Also, while there, I purchased a book of essays, Historic Tales of St. Louis, which was the first step on a journey to the city’s past.
Mining Bibliographies
Many of the articles in Historic Tales of St. Louis were relevant to the 1861 time period, others were not. I skimmed article titles, such as “Army Secretly Sprays St. Louis in Chemical Weapons Program,” “Cary Grant Starts a Trend: Chocolates on a Hotel Pillow,” and “Gaslight Square: See Barbara Streisand for Two Bucks,” and focused on the articles dealing with the 1840s through the 1860s. These included “Brewers and Their Caves,” “Cholera Outbreak of 1849 Kills 10 Percent of Population,” “From Horses to Streetcars,” and “The Great Fire of 1849.” The bibliography in this book led me to an interesting online article, “St. Louis Beer History: Underground Beginnings.” You might have guessed from two of the titles that my novel has scenes in caves where beer is brewed. Until I read these articles, I had no knowledge of underground beer brewing.
An online search led me to another excellent source, A Most Unsettled State: First-Person Accounts of St. Louis During the Civil War. I ordered the book through Emporia’s bookstore, Middle Ground Books, and the excerpts from diaries and letters in the first two sections put me emotionally in the city at the time of my novel. Instead of a bibliography at the back of the book, the source information is given at the end of each excerpt. I was captivated by Galusha Anderson’s description of St. Louis as a city built with red brick, which included homes, businesses, warehouses, and even sidewalks. Wanting to learn more, I searched for his book written in 1908 and found it online: The Story of a Border City During the Civil War.
Another source that helped me understand the tensions between neighbors was Julius Rombauer’s The Union Cause in St. Louis in 1861: An Historical Sketch. Both Galusha Anderson and Julius Rombauer lived in St. Louis during the time of Hannah True’s next adventure, and their books are adding to my knowledge of the people and their world.
Now that I have such excellent historical sources, I am using them to set the scene for Hannah’s first case, a murder mystery set in January 1861 in St. Louis. My goal is to finish the novel and publish by August 2025.
Finished at last! After much nail biting and nine uploads of eBook content files trying to get the appearance just right, I finally said, “Okay, this is the best I can do.” Overcoming, the third book in the Hannah True series, is now up for preorder on Amazon. It will go live on March 20. The paperback will be out by April 15.
If you haven’t yet downloaded your free eBook copy of The Courtship of Hannah True, get yours now and learn about the man Hannah almost married. It is on Book Funnel, and it has been a while since I have promoted the book. Let me know if you have any problems.
My original plan was to publish Overcoming, the third book in The Adventures of Hannah True series, this month. I regret this will not happen. I do have a complete rough draft, and I am currently at the formatting and book cover stage, so I am now projecting publication by the end of January 2024.
In the meantime
To encourage interest in Overcoming when I thought I was publishing this month, I scheduled a free eBook promotion for Uprooted, the first book in the series. That is going on right now, so if you haven’t read the book or you know someone who might like it, please send them the link. The eBook copy of Uprooted will be free from December 16-December 19, 2023. Click here to get your copy.
Series in Progress 