As a preview to my upcoming historical romance novella, I offer again the link to my historical flash-fiction piece, “Rebels Thick as Trees,” which appeared in the July 2010 issue of Christian Fiction Online Magazine. This is one of those stories that grew out of my research for Loyalty’s Cadence, the Revolutionary War novel I finished most recently. “Rebels Thick As Trees” is drawn from a quote by the loyalist Captain Christian Huck, who died in a short but bloody battle in the backcountry of South Carolina, on July 12, 1780. My story explains–the man brought it on himself. 🙂
I use what I suspect would have been the proper spelling of his name, Huick. Standardized spelling didn’t exist in colonial times, and primary sources record his name variously as Huck, Hook, and Huick. It’s most often the first in modern accounts, but given that this man was a native of New York, the son of Dutch settlers, there’s a strong likelihood it at least started as Huick, then Anglicized to other spellings.
More on the pecularities of historical spellings, later …
Christian Fiction Online Magazine (see sidebar) made its debut four years ago, published originally by Michelle Sutton and later by Bonnie Calhoun. A request in passing led to my submitting the flash-fiction piece, “Bitter Chivalry,” which itself first appeared in Deep Magic ezine as a writing challenge winner. (Deep Magic was a delightful little publication that specialized in short, original sci-fi and fantasy, and is sadly no longer in existence.) “Bitter Chivalry” provided a 1000-word glimpse into the storyworld of my longer fantasy series, Gift of the Stranger, and Michelle liked it so well that she asked for a whole series, which led to a total of six installments. (Thank you, Michelle!)
The story link will take you to installment #6, which includes links to the first five segments. The conflict outlined here is the backstory for Daughter of the Gift, yet unpublished and likely to remain so for quite a while. But all things in their time …
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