A Sound Among the Trees: A Novel

By Susan Meissner

Description:

A house shrouded in time. A line of women with a heritage of loss.As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn’t believe that Susannah’s ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past.When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband’s home, it isn’t long before she is led to believe that the house she just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there.With Adelaide’s richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak— and make peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.    

Book Takeaway:

The title is excerpted from a line in a hymn Fanny Crosby wrote about the Civil War. Her hymn is called “There’s A Sound Among the Forest Trees.” It’s basically a call to defend what you say you hold dear. A call to arms. But we are not always to be in the mindset of war, and we can’t stay tethered to the past. My thought here is, when we hear trees rustling we don’t always know what is causing the sound; could be the footfalls of ten thousand soldiers or it could be a gentle breeze to cool you from the heat of the day. It can be one or the other or something else entirely. It will not always be soldiers. You can’t live like that’s all it ever is.

Why the author wrote this book:

I’ve been a quiet devotee of the human element that was the Civil War. I’m not a fan of war, but I am drawn to any backdrop of human drama where the stakes are high, courage and sacrifice go hand-in-hand, and relationships are refined by fire. I’ve watched Ken Burns’ The Civil War on PBS several times over the course of my adult life; it moves me every time I see it.