A RELUCTANT BELLE PICKS UP THE STORY of the impoverished Tupelo, Mississippi, Daughtry sisters right after the completion of A Rebel Heart—placing it in the middle of the Reconstruction Era, five years after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Because Joelle is a writer and teacher, and Schuyler’s goal is tracking down the gunman who killed his father in a race riot, the story necessarily winds its way through some complicated political territory. There was no way to sugarcoat the terrible racial injustices and struggles to right those wrongs that in fact imbued daily Southern life in the early 1870s.
First and foremost, however, I call myself a romance writer—and I mean that in the classic Alexandre Dumas, Zane Grey, and Jane Austen sense. I always desire for character development, satisfying story arc, and evocative setting to supersede any particular “moral.” This is art, and it’s not going to be perfect; it’s simply a take on life as lived through one author’s lens, as clearly and in as unbiased a fashion as I can bring it to you.
With that said, to make the story as historically accurate as possible, I read as many primary sources as I had time for. Those sources include journal and diary entries, memoir and footnoted biography, and contemporary newspaper and magazine articles. You may find a list of these resources on my website, if you’re interested.
For those who like to know which characters were “real people,” the most obvious might be General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Documented sources of the period present a strong personality, a fierce warrior in battle, consummate tactical genius, and undeniable racial bigot. There is some indication that he at least overtly underwent a change of heart toward the end of his life (because of his wife’s Christian influence), but we’ll have to leave that to the Almighty to judge. For the purposes of my story, Forrest had begun to publicly distance himself from the violent activities of the Ku Klux Klan, but conflicting eyewitness accounts of people who knew him survive. I chose to make him an important part of my story, but not the main villain.
A few more heroic real-life characters make an appearance in A Reluctant Belle, including Hiram Revels, the first African American to be seated in the United States Senate (Mississippi), and US Representative (Alabama) James Rapier. Both these men, along with other Southern black congressmen, served with grace and distinction, were generally respected and well liked, and seemed remarkably free of bitterness or resentment toward their white fellow legislators. One of the most interesting and eye-opening accounts of the period that I read was John R. Lynch’s Facts of the Reconstruction. Lynch served as a Mississippi Representative for years during the Reconstruction, becoming the first African American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, and eventually being elected to the US House.
Aside from those few, all other characters are entirely my creation.
Some plot elements are based on real historic events. My Tuscaloosa race riot is based on a similar incident that occurred in Meridian, Mississippi, in March, 1871. The Ku Klux Klan induction rites and the violent atrocities committed by that organization, as described in my story, are based on research gathered by Michael Newton in The Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi: A History. It’s not light reading, but it helped me understand the political and social background—and consequences—of events of the period.
I hope the reader will understand when I say that I have couched some terminology in an attempt not to jar and offend the twenty-first-century ear. I know how some people talked back then. I know it’s offensive on so many levels. But my editors and I saw no need in being deliberately inflammatory, even for the sake of historical purism. I trust the intelligent reader can read between the lines in whatever fashion you find most satisfying.
Mainly I hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Joelle and Schuyler. They truly make me laugh. Every bookworm princess needs a hero to keep her from walking into walls.
I kind of know this from personal experience.