THE LAUREL WREATH

A story of murder, family, secrets, and the American Civil War. Fueled by bullets and booze, the men of the Gray family of South Carolina meet the challenges of the Civil War, backed up by the women who love them. Thomas Gray is thirteen years old and the son of a Baptist minister when the Civil War starts. He has spied for the Confederacy, murdered, has two wives, and is on the run by the time it ends. Thomas and his family struggle with love, race, religion, loyalty, and loss. Although the novel is fiction, I’m the great-granddaughter of Thomas and found his story to be compelling. This is the first volume of a three-volume series chronicling one family’s journey from violence, alcoholism, and belief in white supremacy until one woman, by her belief in the humanity of every person, regardless of race or religion, broke the cycle of racism and violence for her children and grandchildren.

Love, murder, vigilante justice, war—
Does love conquer all differences?
Does revenge settle the score?

Two families with opposing views on everything—race, religion, politics. Can the passionate love of their children settle the conflicts the two of them inherit?

Henry Gray is the oldest son of Thomas Gray, a Confederate from South Carolina who went to Denver, Colorado after the end of the Civil War. Henry has to flee Colorado after murdering his young wife’s lover. He joins the KKK and marries May Hankins, who was born and, raised in Texas. Arthur Lannery is the son of a Catholic Irish immigrant from Pennsylvania who establishes a successful oil supply business in Oklahoma. He marries Gladys Rouche, a young woman who was raised in Ohio.

Henry’s actions during in the Tulsa Massacre in 1921 sets repercussions in motion that no one in these two families could have foreseen.