Talk about a labor of love. I wrote the first draft of this when I was in high school. I undertook a major revision in college after I used the first few chapters to satisfy a creative writing class assignment. Then last year–almost 20 years since the original draft–I picked it back up and began a complete overhaul. And now here it is.
Full disclosure, this is NOT historical fiction like my first book, but I know you are all people of excellent taste and figure there are probably some science fiction fans among you.
Life as a high school senior in suburban New England is fairly mundane for Jeff–a looming graduation, keeping an eye on his sister Ashley and staying out of the way of his stepbrother Jaime. Nothing out of the ordinary, that is, until their parents fail to return home after a work trip.
On the besieged planet of Hetogda, locked in an extended conflict with an elusive terrorist organization, Mayona finds herself in the middle of a personal and political crossroads. She is only at the start of her military career, and from all sides she feels the pressure to live up to her potential.
Little do any of them know that their lives are about to become forever linked, and their fates–and the fate of all Hetogdans–hang in the balance.
It’s hard to imagine now, but at the turn of the century a rail line carted sand through Cape May, New Jersey. Beginning in 1905, the Cape May Sand Company shuttled sand for use in glass and cement, and during World War I the tracks also transported munitions. The company ceased operations in 1936 due to concerns over beach erosion. Thanks to lots of time and lots of sand deposits, the abandoned railroad was eventually lost under the beach.
Or, at least, it was lost until 2014 when storms pulled back the sand enough to reveal roughly 100 feet of rail and crossties. Since then, severe storms have continued to make the tracks periodically visible — most recently, May of 2022.
It was my boyfriend who told me about the “ghost tracks”, as they’re known. He studies coastal geology for a living, and this sort of thing is right up his alley. He also knew that I would be headed to Cape May for a reenactment in June, and brought the subject to my attention.
The gears started turning. The timing was too perfect. Surely I had to try to find them. As word of the reappearance of the ghost tracks spread over the course of May, more pictures turned up online. My boyfriend has both a PhD in sand and an uncanny ability to pinpoint locations on a map based on photographs, and he was able to narrow down a search area for me.
Pictured: Science
Time was definitely a factor here, on multiple fronts. First, sand likes to move. (I can tell you from dating a geologist for 9 years that one of the things sand does best is move.) The ghost tracks would not be visible for long, and I had no way to know if they would still be around in mid-June. The only way to know was to go and find out. Second, the tracks are only visible at low tide. I would have to time my search with the day’s tide schedule or else all of this would be an exercise in futility.
There was nothing else to do but try. Armed with the annotated screenshot above and descriptions from my boyfriend of a couple places I could park and walk, I headed to the Jersey Shore to give it the ol’ college try.
My first attempt from Sunset Beach was a no-go, so I tried a second time from Higbee Beach to the North. With lots of ground to cover and no way to know what I would or wouldn’t find, I put on my big floppy hat to keep my criminally-pale skin protected and started walking. It wasn’t an easy trek for me. Like many intrepid adventurers my movement speed over difficult terrain is halved. I have bad knees and bad feet, and sand is not my friend. And I truly had no idea if I would find anything. I had seen pictures from May, when the tracks were very visible, and just by looking down the shoreline I could see nothing like that.
But I didn’t give up, and I was rewarded. Right about here…
…I found a length of rusted, corroded metal sticking out of the sand.
The tracks were almost gone, when they had been entirely visible a month ago. I had just barely made it in under the wire. For the record, if you look carefully, in the first picture you can see my footprints in the top left on my approach. These photos were taken facing North for better light (and no shadows of me).
Then I looked further South, and realized that there was another straight, dark streak in the sand parallel to the track in front of me.
It’s hard to capture in a picture, because they’re quite far apart–but yes, more track. This section was more heavily corroded, but some curious individual had dug into the sand to reveal the structure.
All in all, the expedition was a success. I can’t (well, I can) believe how close I came to missing the window of opportunity. By next month, they’ll most likely be gone again.Who knows when they’ll be visible again? After 2014 when they were first unearthed, they surfaced again in 2018 and now in 2022.
In the mean time, I got my fill of personal historical discoveries and definitely got my fill of Vitamin D.
Hi all! I am beyond thrilled to announce the publication of my debut novel, a work of historical fiction. I started writing this back in 2012, took a very long break in the middle, and finally polished it up in the past year.
You can purchase it here on Amazon, and if you’d like you can also check out my author website which also includes links to books (both fiction and nonfiction) written by my friends.
Invisible Woman
The year is 1860, and Viola Wellington is in desperate need of a change. With nothing left holding her to her childhood home in Kentucky, Viola makes the decision to move across the ocean to England with her late husband’s family in an attempt to start her life anew.
Little does she know how much change is actually in store for her when she makes the acquaintance of Harry Enslow, a war veteran struggling to make ends meet as a private investigator. Harry is convinced that he alone is on the trail of a band of criminals running rampant and unchecked in London…a theory not at all shared by police sergeant Miles Middleton, Harry’s old friend and confidant.
Is Harry imagining things? Or have he, Miles, and Viola stumbled upon a plot that could shake the country to its very core? The deeper he digs, the more unclear the answer becomes. one thing is certain: all three of their lives have become hopelessly intertwined, and the only way out is through.
Education on the American War of Independence as taught in the United States focuses mainly on the Thirteen Colonies, as they were the ones who banded together to defy King George with open rebellion and fought and bled for their right to self-govern. What often gets lost in the shuffle is acknowledgement of the fourteenth and fifteenth colonies.
South of Georgia were East and West Florida, land with an already tumultuous past. Rebellion against the Crown was hardly Florida’s first sociopolitical drama; by the time of the Revolutionary War, Florida had already been founded by the Spanish, settled by the French, retaken by the Spanish and then handed to England. Due to the fact that Florida chose not to align with their peers and declare independence, and remained aligned with Britain, the colonies’ involvement in the Revolutionary War often gets overlooked in the scope of the larger narrative.
Before exploring Florida’s role in the Revolutionary War itself, let’s take a look at how Florida ended up in the hands of the British at all.
Confessions of a Female Grenadier 