IN WRATH REMEMBER MERCY - Aquila Dhu - One Free Book

Welcome, Aquila. Tell us how much of yourself you write into your characters. Lots! Torquil (the hero of the story) and I are both trauma survivors, committed to faithfulness, duty, and honor, and love our land and home-places. MacLeod is impatient and goal-oriented. Some elements of Miss Mary’s love story mirror those of mine. Nannie and I are both tomboys who have daring adventures, and, like Mrs. Grieg, I raised two boys to whom I did not give birth. (My husband was a widower.) 

What is the quirkiest thing you have ever done? Applied for graduate school (in History, of course) and for Social Security within two weeks, and was accepted for both. 

When did you first discover that you were a writer? In fifth grade, when I drew pictures on one side of sheets of paper and wrote stories about them on the other side. The origins of In Wrath Remember Mercy date back to junior high.

Tell us the range of the kinds of books you enjoy reading. I love the novels of Captain Charles King, John Esten Cooke, and Rosemary Sutcliffe. Other than that, I read history: all periods of American History, and Roman Britain and the Dark Ages, fascinating because so little is actually known about the latter.

Yes, I was wondering what books you read about the Dark Ages. How do you keep your sanity in our run, run, run world? I trust in God to bring whatever He wills into each day, and pray to respond gratefully and competently. It also helps to live in a rural area rather than in a city.

How do you choose your characters’ names? By national heritage. For example, Gerhardt Vogelsang is German, while most of the Abercairn folks are Scottish.

What is the accomplishment that you are most proud of? Driving 80 miles per hour through the dark to get my husband to the hospital after an injury. 

If you were an animal, which one would you be, and why? An eagle, as in Isaiah 40:31. “They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles...”

What is your favorite food? The Beef Stroganoff I make.

I love Beef Stroganoff. What is the problem with writing that was your greatest roadblock, and how did you overcome it? Writing too much. I overcame it by cutting out stage directions and some of the secondary characters, and telling the story from a number of first person points of view.

Tell us about the featured book. In Wrath Remember Mercy is a dialogue among the main characters and a few secondary ones. During the War Between the States, part of the Indian Wars in the West, and the latter part of Reconstruction in Virginia, Torquil Dhu Drummond undergoes traumatizing experiences which sometimes overset his reason. He tries to regain the original true, unstained self which trauma has stolen from him by various methods, but finds that only God can truly heal and redeem.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Gloria Victis! (Latin: Glory to the vanquished!)

“For the principle of State rights and State sovereignty the Southern men fought with a holy ardor and self-denying patriotism that have covered even defeat with imperishable glory.” (Dr. Charles E. Stowe, son of the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ca. 1900.)

I came to my senses in a dim cell. Hands manacled, head throbbing, dizzy . . . thought I’d vomit. I didn’t! Blood oozing from my head. Couldn’t diagnose any other injuries. How to escape? I ran a finger around the top of my right boot. The skean dhu was gone.

The only light glimmered through gratings in an iron-bound door. Manacles chained to log wall, floor of rammed earth. The guard would be the only weak point . . . . 

I must have passed out again.

Rough prodding in the ribs . . . blue . . .Yankees! Brain and skin prickled. Everything in me flamed for attack. I sprang, but the irons caught me mid-way.

One guard startled back. The other jammed his Spencer into my sternum.

“Give up, Reb! You’re caught. Get up slow.” He kept that carbine on me while the scaredy one unlocked the manacles. 

Dizziness and headache were less. Under guard, crossing the parade, I was memorizing: log palisade, gates, log cabins, North Star, good cover under the edge of a big cistern lid . . . . Then they nudged me into a stark little room.

“Dismissed.”

Silhouetted by the lamp behind him, an officer rose from his field desk, well over six feet tall. Brown hair, a few silver strands glinting. Beneath level brows, intent brown eyes missed nothing. Moustache, knifed off at the lines around a wide mouth.

“MacLeod!”

“Good evening, Lieutenant Drummond.”

How can readers find you on the Internet? The web site is http://www.InWrathRememberMercy.com  There’s opportunity to leave comments, questions, etc. by email: Aquila@InWrathRememberMercy.com

Thank you, Aquila, for sharing your novel with my blog readers and me. I’m sure many people think of PTSD as a modern thing, but this book will open their eyes to it’s historical significance.

Readers, here are links to the book.

https://amzn.to/2SrZEYk - Paperback

https://amzn.to/3j9r00j - Kindle edition

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