Finalist (shortlist), M.M. Bennetts Award in Historical Fiction, 2014.
"Movement from the first novel to the second is seamless, but it’s tempting to say that Wiegenstein’s quiet sequel surpasses his original." -- John Mort, Down Along the Piney (book review blog).
I had the story of This Old World in mind even as I was writing the first draft of Slant of Light. In my mind, the two books are intimately interconnected, although a lot of people tell me they read and enjoyed This Old World before they read Slant of Light, and in some cases without even knowing it existed.
The title comes from an old hymn that I used to hear: "This old world is full of trouble, full of sickness, weak and sore. If you love your neighbor truly, love will come to you the more." It's set to a wonderful shape-note tune called "Restoration," and every time I see that title, the tune runs through my mind. Here's a version.with the lyrics I remember, and here's a version with the old "sacred harp" lyrics and sung in the Sacred Harp style.
So maybe loving your neighbor is a theme in This Old World, or maybe the theme is that the world is full of trouble. I guess they're not mutually exclusive.
This Old World came out in 2014 and received great reviews! Here's one from the Historical Novels Review, one from the St.Louis Post-Dispatch, one from Lens & Pen Press, and one from Vox Magazine. I have to admit, though, that my favorite review is the one posted by one of the M.M. Bennetts judges. Here's a link to that review on my blog.
Purchase this book
Here's a sample:
Chapter 1
Charlotte Turner stood beneath a redbud tree and watched the last six chickens of Daybreak scratch for morsels among the henbit carpeting the cemetery. They'd been kept in a coop for all the years of the war, far enough into the woods that the sound of their clucking couldn't be heard by a passing raider, then brought down to scratch whenever the weather allowed. Any sign of trouble and she could shoo them into the forest within moments.
A wren sang overhead. Charlotte loved the sound of a wren in the morning, a bird she had heard since childhood, but never known by name until she came out to Daybreak and began accumulating knowledge of the world. Life in the forest had taught her much: plants that heal, plants that harm, songs and calls and what they meant. It troubled her that more knowledge was out there to be learned, knowledge she hadn't mastered, plans unfulfilled, projects uncompleted, good things undone. But the war had come, and those plans and projects scattered like straw in the wind.
