I'm a HUGE Lincoln buff, always have been. In 2006, I decided to combine my love of Lincoln and the paranormal. I began researching A NECESSARY END, my paranormal twist on John Wilkes Booth's insane plot to assassinate President Lincoln. It contains no fictional characters.
I joined The Surratt Society, based in Maryland, and attended their conferences and tours. Mary Surratt was one of Booth's conspirators--the motley crew met at her Washington D.C. boarding house to hatch their plot. She was tried, convicted and hanged with three others. Through the Surratt Society I met several Lincoln/Booth/Civil War experts. One lady I’ll never forget meeting is Marjorie “Peg” Page, who by all accounts except definitive DNA testing, is John Wilkes Booth’s great granddaughter.
Abraham Lincoln has fascinated me since I was eight years old. I don’t know
what got me started, but it might’ve been a book which I still have titled The
Life of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1, written in 1895. When I was in 3rd
grade, in the mid-60s (which shows how long I’ve been a Lincoln nut), my
teacher asked us to bring a book to school from home, for a show & tell. My
mother suggested I bring this Lincoln book, which even in 1966 was in bad
shape—yellowed, stiffened strips of Scotch tape barely held the covers to the
spine. With the wisdom of an 8-year-old that sadly, all of us outgrow, I
demurred, saying, “This old book? She’ll think we’re poor!” My mother corrected
me: “No, she’ll think we’re rich. Books like this are rare.” Then she proceeded
to tape it up some more. Those 47-year-old Scotch tape fragments adhere to the
book’s spine and pages to this day. My teacher, Miss Cohen, was duly impressed.
I treasure that book to this day, and it’s one of many on my “Lincoln shelf”
which holds books about our murdered president, his wife Mary, his assassin
John Wilkes Booth and his family, the “Mad Booths of Maryland” and the
conspirators who faced the gallows or years of hard labor because Booth, their
charismatic leader, sucked these poor impressionable souls into his insane
plot.
After
writing 8 historicals set in England and New York City, I wanted to indulge my
passion for Lincoln-lore. I began researching in depth about Lincoln’s life,
his presidency, his role in the Civil War, and Booth’s plans to first kidnap
him, and then to assassinate him. A NECESSARY END combined two genres I’m
passionate about—history and paranormal.My trips to Lincoln's home
and tomb in Springfield, Illinois, Gettysburg, Ford’s Theater, and the house he
died in, Petersen House, brought me close to Mr. Lincoln’s spirit. My travels
also acquainted me with Booth’s brother Edwin, the most famous actor of his
time, and his unconventional family. A
recording of Edwin’s voice reciting Shakespeare on one of Edison’s wax
cylinders still exists. Click here for Edwin Booth's recording. My paranormal experience includes investigations at several haunted homes,
restaurants and graveyards. I’ve never seen a
ghost, but I’ve received responses to my questions with my dowsing rods.
Tragically,
we’ll never hear Abraham Lincoln’s voice. But his spirit lives on. In my book,
which is fiction--but we all know that novels are fictionalized truths--I gave
Booth what was coming to him. He got his justice in real life, but in A
NECESSARY END, he also got the paranormal twist he deserves.
And
I enjoyed sticking it to him!
I
paralleled the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar in this story because in the
play, Caesar was known as a tyrant to the Senators, who feared losing their
power, as Booth feared losing the Confederacy. Booth always considered Lincoln
the tyrant, hence his proclamation ‘sic simper tyrannis’ (be it ever to
tyrants) when he jumped to the stage after shooting Lincoln.
Caesar’s
Senators, Brutus and Cassius among them, conspired to stab Caesar to death on
an appointed day. Booth recruited a group of like-minded disciples to aid him
in his insane plot, at first to kidnap Lincoln, then to kill him.
By day, Booth was a Confederate spy and courier, taking dangerous
missions so that his beloved South could fight the North in the war that tore
the nation in two. But in this story, an even darker secret plagues him–he
believes he’s the reincarnation of Brutus, the man who slew the tyrant Caesar,
and Booth’s destiny in this life is to murder the tyrant who’s ravaged the
South—Abraham Lincoln. In obeying the spirit of Brutus, Booth devises a plot to
assassinate the tyrant.
I
wrote it as a paranormal instead of a straight historical novel because spirituality was extremely popular in
1865 and all throughout Victorian times. Mary Lincoln was a staunch
spiritualist. So stricken with grief after the deaths of her boys Willie and
Eddie, she hired mediums such as Nettie Maynard to visit the White House and
hold séances in attempts to contact her boys from beyond the grave.
The
extent of séances, table-tapping, Ouija boards, Tarot cards, and otherworldly
activities in this era fit perfectly with the story I wanted to tell. We could
never enter Booth’s head, but his insane behavior begs the question: was he
truly haunted by a spirit who drove him to his heinous act that changed history
forever?
Or
was he simply insane?
Excerpt:
“And I am
Brutus, Marcus Brutus, I; Brutus, my country's friend; know me for
Brutus!" Booth declared to the proud reflections in his three facing
mirrors.
The center mirror clouded over.
Puzzled, he leaned into it to peer closer. His
reflection faded as if the mirror were clear glass, and another human
form took shape, becoming sharper as the mist faded. He was astonished to be
looking into the face of a man whose eyes bored into his, pinning him with an
unnerving stare. Booth took a step back, glancing to the left, then to the
right, but his own reflections were moving right along with him. He focused
once more on the stranger in the center, the Roman nose giving the weathered
features distinction. He’d seen this face before, but where?
The head nodded and the hint of a
pleased smile curled the thin lips. Without so much as a word, the figure faded
into the mirror’s eternal depths, and Booth was once again looking at his own
astonished face.
“Damn you! Who are you?” He pounded
the mirror and it wavered, his image jerking back and forth with the moving
glass.
Exasperated, he turned away.
“I’ll find out who you are if I die
doing it.” He twirled around to face the mirror, seeing only his three
perplexed reflections.
A NECESSARY END is on sale for 99 cents for Kindle until July 22.
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