TJ Turner Releases LINCOLN'S BODYGUARD

Longboat Key, FL

How would American history have been changed had Abraham Lincoln survived the April 14, 1865 assassination attempt? Author TJ Turner takes a look at one possibility in his revisionist historical thriller, Lincoln's Bodyguard, released today.

In Lincoln's Bodyguard, an alternative version of American history, President Lincoln is saved from assassination. Though he prophesied his own death-the only way he believed the South would truly surrender-Lincoln never accounted for the heroics of his bodyguard, Joseph Foster. The biracial son of a white man and Miami Indian mother, Joseph makes an enemy of the South by killing John Wilkes Booth and preventing the death of the president. His wife is murdered and his daughter kidnapped, sending Joseph on a revenge-fueled rampage to recover his daughter. When his search fails, he disappears. The nation falls into a simmering insurgency instead of an end to the War.

Years later, Joseph is still running from his past when he receives a letter from Lincoln pleading for help. The President has a secret mission. Pursued from the outset, Joseph turns to the only person who might help, the woman he abandoned years earlier. If he can win Molly over, he might just fulfill the President's urgent request, find his daughter, and maybe even return peace to the war-torn country.

The author, TJ Turner, describes Lincoln's Bodyguard:
"Even though the novel is a revisionist historical, it takes place in the post-Civil War era, and describes the devastation faced by the nation in the wake of an extremely costly war. The largest theme tested in the novel challenges the myth that if Lincoln had lived, the South would have recovered faster and the nation healed in a less divisive manner. Many historians (Winik, Oates, Swanson) have postulated that particular interpretation is not realistic, and in fact the entire legend surrounding Lincoln is a more modern interpretation of his presidency, after time and historical context have muted some of the nuances of the time. Beyond challenging the Lincoln reconstruction myth, the reader will see interesting historical scenes that don't get much attention in the popular Civil War outlook: freed slaves who fought for the Confederacy, the rise and influence of the Second Industrial Revolution and the associated Robber Baron class, and the use of partisan and guerrilla warfare long before the insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan made it commonplace in the American psyche."

Lincoln's Bodyguard is available in hardcover (ISBN 978-1-60809-143-0 - 283 Pages - Historical Fiction / Thriller) and all digital formats (ISBN 978-1-60809-144-7) through Amazon, Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Kobo, Independent Booksellers, and Public Libraries.

"In the prologue of Turner's first novel, an intriguing and plausible alternative history, Joseph Foster, a bodyguard in the presidential box at Ford's Theatre on the night of Apr. 14, 1865, prevents John Wilkes Booth from assassinating Lincoln. Seven years later, however, the Civil War still simmers as a guerilla conflict. Foster, who left Washington after saving the president's life, returns to D.C. in response to a summons from Lincoln, now in his third term. The president, a shadow of his former self ("the office had drained him, pulling his very essence from the shell of his suit"), is worried about a traitor in the White House passing secrets to the Confederates. Meanwhile, Col. William Norris, a leader of the resistance who headed the Confederate Secret Service, offers to end the fighting. Despite Norris's role in planning Booth's murderous mission, Lincoln wants Foster to meet with him. The plot twists of this imaginative what-if will keep readers guessing."
-Publishers Weekly

Lincoln's Bodyguard is distributed by Midpoint Trade Books, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, OverDrive, Bookazine, and all other fine literary distributors.

Author TJ Turner is available for book signings, special appearances, talks, and interviews. To inquire, please contact David Ivester at davidi(at)oceanviewpub(dot)com

To post a comment, you must register and login.