Acknowledgments

NO BOOK IS CREATED IN A VACUUM, certainly not one that encompasses the voices of different eras, generations, and races. Definitely not this book.

I am gratefully indebted to my brother, Dan Lounsbury, and to family members from earlier generations for their research and provision of Goforth family history, especially the archives of Samuel Smith Goforth, who inspired parts of the story of Elliott Belvidere, including his loyalty to the Constitution, service in the NC militia, trial before Jefferson Davis for treason and the unusual provisions made by Major Sloane, who saved his life through noncombatant service in the Confederacy.

Thank you to my literary agent and dear friend, Natasha Kern, for championing this book and for walking with me through the challenges it presented in our current national discussions on race.

Thank you, Stephanie Broene and Sarah Rische, gifted editors, for your insightful questions and edits that have so improved this book; Lindsey Bergsma, for this tremendous book cover; Andrea Garcia, for marketing; Katie Dodillet, for publicity; and to all my publishing team at Tyndale House Publishers. You are the best team an author could imagine, and I am so grateful for all you have done in helping to bring this book to life and to readers.

Thank you, Tina-Marie Cornelius, friend and correspondent, for the title of this book. In a wonderful letter early in our correspondence you mentioned, in relation to something else entirely, “a choir of a hundred crickets singing.” I knew right away that was the perfect title for this book.

Thank you, Robert Whitlow, inspiring author and attorney-at-law, for generously helping me understand the moral questions, legalities, and ramifications of deeds destroyed, and for brainstorming possibilities to escape “deep legal waters” in this work of fiction. I’m so grateful. Any mistakes are mine.

Thank you, Elisabeth Gardiner, precious daughter, for reading an early version of this manuscript and for sharing your insights. I love sharing reading/writing ventures with you.

Thank you, Joe Garofalo, longtime neighbor and family friend, for teaching me how to make red gravy and multiple forms of pasta, the recipe passed through generations of your Rossetti and Garofalo families. Any mistakes in my story’s explanation of this art are mine.

Thank you, dear family, friends, and readers, for your enthusiasm, encouragement, and prayers for the writing of this book and its journey into the world. I pray that the Lord will bless our joint efforts to bring glory to Him and hope and healing to those in need.

Thank you, Uncle Wilbur Goforth, for reminding me that our service to our Lord is daily, wherever we are, whatever we’re doing. When torn between two career paths for the second half of my life’s journey, you reminded me that a sure way to know I am working in the will of God is to ask, “Do I have joy? Is this yoke easy? Is this burden light?” The answer is still yes —writing gives me great joy, the weight of this yoke is easy, and this burden shines as light in my heart.

Beyond all measure I thank my heavenly Father and Lord Jesus Christ for gifts of hope, life, love, family, this season of writing, and for eternal unmerited salvation. In Your daily presence is fullness of joy.

May this book serve as a bridge to understanding the past, as an instrument of peace in the present, and as hope for future transformation of hearts in our world. May it point only to You, heavenly Father, for You are the hope we crave, and You are the healing and salvation we all so desperately need.