NEW BOOK: TURNING THE TIDE by Edith Maxwell

Ah! A new book and a giveaway! Whoo Hoo! 
 I'm lucky to know Edith Maxwell as an author and as a friend. I've watched her writing career blossom and am amazed she can be involved in multiple community and writing/author groups and have time to polish up her eighteenth novel! Her historical Quaker Midwife series is terrific. Her settings zing with authenticity and her characters are imbued with the conflicts of their time plus modern sensibilities. If you don't know her books, you should! Here's the inside scoop on her upcoming release. Don't forget to comment or ask Edith a question to enter the giveaway!  -cjh
Why I Wrote Turning the Tide
I’m delighted to be back on Out of the Fog. Thanks for inviting me, Connie! I thought I’d share how I came to write Turning the Tide , my third Quaker Midwife Mystery, which comes out April 8. And I’d be delighted to send a signed copy of the new book to one commenter here today.The series begins in 1888 and came about from a simple news story I read in our local paper in 2013. It described the Great Fire of 1888 in the mill town of Amesbury, Massachusetts, where I live. The fire, on the night before Good Friday, burned down many of the carriage factories – and Amesbury was world famous for producing graceful well-built carriages. The town and neighboring Salisbury had been tussling about who was going to annex whom, so the municipal fire-fighting equipment hadn’t been updated. The fire raged, spreading to the telegraph and post offices, so they couldn’t send for help to other larger towns. Only an overnight rain helped reduce some of the damage. I was walking to Quaker Meeting one Sunday morning after reading that article and a short story about a Quaker mill girl who solves the mystery of the Carriage Fire arson popped into my head. Poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier had a bit part in the story, too. I now have a five-book contract for a series featuring Whittier, that mill girl, and her aunt Rose Carroll, our midwife-sleuth.Each of my books in this series has a social issue as a theme. In book time, Turning the Tide was getting around to fall of 1888, so I thought woman's suffrage during the presidential election was a perfect fit. Quaker women were in the forefront of the suffrage movement, from Lucretia Mott to Susan B. Anthony to Alice Paul. I brought Elizabeth Cady Stanton to town to rally the ladies, and then (fictionally) murdered the leader of the Amesbury Woman Suffrage Association. Despite the murder of one of their own, the women turn out in force across the street from the polls on Election DTurning the Tide:
Excitement runs high during Presidential election week in 1888. The Woman Suffrage Association plans a demonstration and Elizabeth Cady Stanton comes to town to rally the troops. Quaker midwife Rose Carroll resolves to join the protest along with her suffragist mother. When she finds the body of the association’s leader the next morning, she’s drawn into delivering more than babies. The victim, who had spurned a fellow suffragist’s affections, planned to leave her controlling husband. Her recent promotion cost a male colleague his job. A down-on-his luck handyman was seen near the murder scene. Rose’s own life is threatened more than once as she sorts out killer from innocent.

Bio:
Agatha- and Macavity-nominated author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries, the Local Foods Mysteries, and award-winning short crime fiction. Called to Justice, Maxwell’s second Quaker Midwife mystery, is nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel. Turning the Tide releases April 8.
As Maddie Day she writes the popular Country Store Mysteries and the new Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. Biscuits and Slashed Browns came out January 30. 
Maxwell is president of Sisters in Crime New England and lives north of Boston with her beau, two elderly cats, and an impressive array of garden statuary. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, KillerCharacters.com, and Under the Cover of Midnight (http://midnightinkbooks.blogspot.com/). Read about all her personalities and her work at edithmaxwell.com.