FICTION: There was a bit of a family history mystery that came down to me from my great grandmother, Mary Bancroft Nute Davis, who lived with us before she died when I was very young.  It concerned a lost manuscript that her father the Rev. Ephraim Nute had written about Bleeding Kansas and the Civil War, from his perspective as an abolitionist preacher who nearly lost his life there, and who claimed to have been at Harper’s Ferry during John Brown’s 1859 assault on the armory. In 2010 I published an academic history of his contributions to the history of his religious denomination (which is my own), but the question lingered in my mind–what about the family stories?  What about the adventures I could only document with “smoking guns”? What about the secrets he told his daughter, my great grandmother, that she told her children and grandchildren, my grandmother and mother among them?  Against the backdrop of all my historical research on the man–this is first and foremost a work of historical fiction–I have tried to “create” the manuscript which was lost when he died.  Liberty’s Curse weaves together what we know about where my great great grandfather was and what he was doing in the 19th century with the family stories heard from his daughter.  It reconstructs the fictional thinking and feelings of my troublesome ancestor, and for any mistaken assumptions I’ve made, I humbly ask his forgiveness….  (Amazon, 2020)

 

FICTION: Ronnat Rua, apprentice to her grandmother the Death Crooner, comes of age over the 13 months of the sacred moon-year of her people. She struggles with loneliness and while life turns her from child to woman, destiny, duty, and dreams collide with loyalty and love. Steeped in the rituals and spells of her people, surrounded by the spirits that cross the veil between this life and the next, Ronnat is awakening to powers within of Sight and Healing. Before the year is done, Ronnat must survive a calamity and save the life of someone precious. Based on the archeology and folklore of the tribes of the British Isles, DogMaiden Moons is Book I of The Saga of the Heroine trilogy. (Amazon, 2019)

 

During a cold autumn storm, a young man washes ashore and is discovered by Ronnat Rua, apprentice to the Death Crooner of the Trabally, a young woman whose travails and travels become part of the legends and sacred history of her people. Ronnat nurses him back to health, and they begin to learn each other’s language. A haunting melody he sings one evening propels him straight into her heart, and compels Ronnat to venture unwillingly off the islands of her childhood and leave her lover in order to understand the mysteries of her birth and fulfill her duty to a father unknown. The perilous voyage across sea and land demands much of her skills weaving the spells and rituals of her people, commanding her attention to the strange ways of unknown ancestors, and ultimately throwing her into a fight for her life against man and nature. The Sea-Battler’s Song is Book II in The Saga of the Heroine trilogy. (Amazon, 2019)

 

Nearly three years after Ronnat’s return from the northlands, fate propels her into her destiny as Death Crooner. Journeying to the great sacred center of her people to release the old Death Crooner’s spirit to the stars, she finds it has been usurped by a dangerous cult, which presses her into service in exchange for permission to perform her desired rituals there. As Ronnat struggles against the potions given to her to enable her to predict the future, she drives away everyone and everything she loves, and stands in great danger of losing her spirit and her life. But her village needs her strength and guidance desperately, and those she loves most need her back amongst them. Before her death the old Death Crooner prophesied her people would have a new beginning, and Ronnat is the only one who can make that happen against the evils of humanity and the raw brutalities of nature. The Death Crooner’s Passage is Book 3 in The Saga of the Heroine trilogy. (Amazon, 2019)

 

NON-FICTION: In the spring of 1855, a young Unitarian minister and his brand new flock found themselves in the midst of an undeclared civil war over slavery in the Kansas Territory. Members of Ephraim Nute’s church were shot at, scalped, burned out of their homes, impoverished, and imprisoned. Their faith and pacifism were sorely tested. Through it all, Nute nurtured his growing congregation, fought ardently for abolition, helped escaped slaves, and struggled with the American Unitarian Association to secure the financial support he had been promised. His written accounts of the violence in “Bleeding Kansas” rallied abolitionists and the Unitarian denomination. … Nute comes to life again in his letters and the correspondence of those who knew him. Sometimes funny, sometimes painful, and always poignant, the story of Nute’s ministry illuminates what it means to do the work of justice in the face of violent resistance. Nute and his parishioners helped shaped the destiny of the Territory, the outcome of the Abolitionist movement, the inevitability of the Civil War, and the future of the Unitarian Universalist denomination. (Skinner House Books, 2011, 2012)

 

NON-FICTION: What One Man Can Do For Freedom: The Documented and Undocumented Life of Rev. Ephraim Nute, Jr., Annotated Documentary Biography Compiled by Rev. Dr. Bobbie Groth and William C. Groth Jr., annotated by Rev. Dr. Bobbie Groth, 580 pp.; color plates. Milwaukee: Wisconsin Book Bindery, (2010) documentary biography of the Unitarian missionary to the Kansas Territory in 1855, Rev. Ephraim Nute Jr., from official records, archives, and family stories) In the collections of: University of Kansas, Lawrence, Department of Special Collections, Kenneth Spencer Research Library; Wichita State University, Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita, KS; Kansas Historical Society, State Archives & Library, Topeka, KS; Watkins Community Museum of History, Lawrence, KS; Lawrence Public Library, Lawrence, KS; The Unitarian Fellowship of Lawrence, Lawrence, KS; Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA; American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA; Harvard University Archives, Pusey Library, Boston, MA; Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Manuscripts and Archives, MA; Ohio State Historical Society, Collections, Historic Preservation; Kent State University, Special Collections and Archives, OH; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, MA;Library of Congress, Washington, DC; Southwest Harbor Public Library, Southwest Harbor, ME; South Milwaukee Public Library, South Milwaukee, WI; Woodman Institute, Dover, NH; Dover New Hampshire Public Library; New England Historic Genealogical Association, Boston, MA