The idea began with a short story, The Gunnie, which Harris contributed to an anthology. What might have happened if Franklin Roosevelt had been assassinated before he could take office? That's the underlying premise behind the new alternative history trilogy from best selling suspense/fantasy author Charlaine Harris, who describes a broken America, battered by the Great Depression, and people cut adrift from all their old certainties, struggling to survive. The U.S. now consists of:
New Britannia: The original colonies (sans Georgia) have been re-annexed by Britain;.
Dixie: The old South (including Georgia) has reverted to its segregationist past;
The Holy Russian Empire: California and Oregon has been colonized by the Russian Imperial family and their devoted followers, who survived and escaped from the Revolution, with the help of "gregories" or wizards recruited by Rasputin;
New America: A Canadian-controlled portion of the northwestern U.S.
Texoma: A secessioned portion of the southwestern U.S. with few towns and less law on the raw edge of Mexico;
Indian Territory: a swathe of the central/western states reclaimed by the surviving native tribes;
The first novel of the trilogy is An Easy Death, featuring Lizbeth Rose, an insouciant young gunnie who is hired by a pair of Russian gregories to help them track down a descendant of Rasputin. It seems there is something in the blood of Rasputin and his direct descendants that can counteract Tsar Alexei's hemophilia.
With all the grit, suspense and action Harris's fans expect, the trilogy has already been optioned for a television series.
Click HERE to read the starred* review from Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.
Click HERE to read a review and preview from Entertainment Weekly.
Click HERE to read an early pre-publication review from Tor.com.
Click HERE to watch an interview with Charlaine Harris from KATU-TV2 in Portland, Oregon.
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