Thank you to everyone who has commented with their personal stories on my book giveaway post.  I love them!

Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker is a novel that reads like a diary,  a true story looking into the life of someone who was “behind the scenes” during a tumultuous time of our country.   We know history, but we don’t know the whole story.  Jennifer Chiaverini has written a must read for historical fiction fans.  After reading the book, you’ll want to know more about this woman, Elizabeth Keckley, and the amazing life she lived.  My only disappointment with the book is that it didn’t have pictures of the dresses and wardrobe fittings!  For the fans of Chiaverini’s Elm Creek series, you’ll be happy to know there is a quilt story weaved in.

There is still time to win this book!  Leave a comment on this post before midnight CST and you’ll be entered to win.  The winner will announced tomorrow!  Thank you and good luck to all!  🙂 Linda

Your New York Times bestselling Elm Creek Quilts series has frequently drawn on history to great acclaim, and your passion for the American people, their struggles and triumphs, shines through. What is it about the antebellum and Civil War eras, especially, that intrigues you as a writer?

The antebellum and Civil War eras were a tumultuous and transformative time for our nation, showing the best and worst of humanity in stark contrast. Looking back, we discover great moral failings alongside true heroism in the struggle for justice, equality, and freedom. My personal heroes are people who face adversity with moral courage and dignity, whose hunger for justice and compassion for others lead them to stand up for what is right even at great risk to themselves. My favorite characters to write about either possess similar qualities, or are given the opportunity to summon up these qualities and do what is right but fall short. What slavery, the Underground Railroad, secession, and the Civil War say about our country—that we are capable of both great moral failings and tremendous goodness—resonates strongly even today, perhaps especially today, and as a creative person, I am drawn to explore and try to understand that conflict.

What is your next work of fiction? Can readers expect to meet another remarkable yet little known figure from America’s past?

 My next novel, The Spymistress (Dutton, October 2013), will explore the suspenseful, clandestine life of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union loyalist who was General Grant’s most valuable spy in her native Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital during the tumultuous years of the Civil War.

Here’s the link to win this book!  🙂 Linda