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Historical fiction 94,000 words Life is hard in the mid-nineteenth century. One thing is certain: death. For generations, the True family has made its living as "warners," the early trade of providing funeral services for the deceased. Archer True is good at his job. He has a wife at home, but he also has a proclivity for drinking whiskey and bedding women-the latter is a vice with disastrous repercussions. It all goes haywire when he falls for Charlotte Fenn, a "weeper" or paid mourner. Whenever their affair ends in pregnancy, both families have to deal with the aftermath.Charlotte's son, Augustus, is taken from her at birth to be raised by the True family. But a mother's love doesn't die easily, so she watches him grow from a distance. After an unexpected turn of events, Augustus runs away to a military academy in the south. Charlotte cannot bear to be away from her son and takes off to search for him. To make matters worse, the Civil War wages around them. As Charlotte struggles to find her son, Augustus fights to make his way home, while a deeper, darker secret looms on the horizon.