Lost Souls Recovered

by Eric Walker

Overview

One man's journey toward a better life.

When the wife of a plantation owner dies on a fateful night in 1887, John Billingsly makes the gut-wrenching decision to leave his mother and everything he knows to flee their slave cabin in Richmond, Virginia. Instructed by his mother to find a cousin in Mt. Hope, Alabama, John wends his way south in hope of a better life.

With the plantation owner shadowing him every step of the way, his journey is perilous. One misstep could cost him his freedom-and his life.

Inspired by a true story, Lost Souls Recovered is a mesmerizing historical family saga of loss and gain, survival and self-reinvention, and one family's fight for freedom in the midst of the post-Civil War American South.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611534740
Publisher:	Torchflame Books
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Pages:	438
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.97(d)

About the Author

As an amateur genealogist and certified family historian, Eric Walker was impelled to write his debut novel Lost Souls Recovered when he discovered the richness of family stories through research of historical documents and those told to him by relatives. As he read historical documents and talked to relatives, he'd envision a way to bring to life in fiction form many of his ancestors who lived a hardscrabble life and who worked to overcome hardship. He believed the written word could unlock doors as well as the imagination and unite our spirit through our visions. He is working on a second novel involving land loss in the early post-Reconstruction era. He is a lawyer and lives in Ohio.

Editorial Reviews

2022-12-07
A historical novel about one young man’s run toward freedom decades after the Civil War.

Walker’s debut novel opens in Richmond, Virginia, in 1887, where Black teenager John works for Tyrone Billingsly, a White man who once enslaved John’s father. Tyrone is kind enough to John, but his wife, Laura, wants nothing to do with the young man. John decides to steal from the family—an act that leads to an unexpected death. John’s mother suggests that he head to Mount Hope, Alabama, where Cousin Riley lives, so John and his friend Douglas take off together. Thus begins a 41-year journey for John in which he seeks true freedom and wrestles with his personal demons; along the way, Tyrone remains on his trail. John’s travels take him to Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama, where a dramatic confrontation occurs; and, finally, Mount Hope in 1893. There, he searches for a family member and tries to forge a new life, but in this small Southern town, he still faces numerous threats as a person of color. Over the course of this novel, Walker delivers deft storytelling with superb pacing and compelling, believable dialogue. The work eventually becomes an epic tale that resembles a quest narrative. The prose throughout is vivid, as well, as in an evocative description of John’s mother as “a stout forty-nine-year-old with grape-colored skin and dark brown, recessed eyes. Tufts of unruly black hair dangled from her blue-and-white checkered madras tignon.” Stories that take place over decades can easily become overwhelming and unwieldy, but Walker writes tightly and expertly here, crafting an intriguing plot with a real feeling for history.

An expertly told tale of loss, love, and second chances.

Kirkus Reviews