Fiction

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Dwight L. Wilson's The Re-Remembered weaves together tales of resilience, resistance, and cultural identity in the face of oppression. From the battlefields of the War of 1812 to the plantations of Virginia, these stories explore the complex relationships between slaves, slave masters, Native American tribes, and abolitionists.

Discover the strength of the human spirit as characters navigate treacherous landscapes, fight for their freedom, and strive to preserve their heritage. Perfect for readers interested in historical fiction, African American studies, and Native American studies. Experience history through the eyes of those who lived it, and find inspiration in their unwavering determination to create a better world.

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Dwight's follow-up collection to The Kidnapped contains twenty-four short stories that Kirkus Reviews says "create a remarkable, multihued portrait of America". The stories focus on blacks, whites, and Native Americans resisting pre-Civil War oppression while attempting to establish dignified identities.

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Dwight Wilson researched for more than a dozen years to ensure this brilliant historic fiction collection portrayed the very nuanced history of African Americans in the United States. These stories span initial capture of Dwight's ancestors to those who broke the laws in the name of truth, humanity, and kindness.

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Click here to order a physical copy of The Kidnapped directly from Dwight L. Wilson ($16.99 via PayPal or Zelle)

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While The Lion and the Lamb may be read as a stand-alone, it also builds upon the story line from Sarah’s Song, Out of the Shadow of Darkness, The Courtship of Queens, The Cloud’s Whisper, and River Woman Joined at the Heart, the first five books in the Esi Was My Mother series. Among the continuing themes are the proper relationship between siblings and the African-American, European-American and Native American engagement in the anti-slavery movement.

Dan Crispin, Sarah Ferguson, and Robin, three of the children of Esi, a slave on Fruits of the Spirit Plantation escaped to Ohio, under the leadership of Caesar, a man with African roots whose family had been a part of the Shawnee nation for four generations. As The Lion and the Lamb opens, Dan has become an Underground Railroad conductor and successful owner of a stagecoach line with headquarters in Cincinnati, “the kidnapping capital of the world.” His efforts to try to prove himself a gentlemen are challenged by the primary stresses of trying to build positive relationships with the geographically dispersed children he fathered before marriage to the love of his life, Zephyrine; getting out of a verbal contract with the wealthy abolitionist and suffragette, Patience Starbuck; and the racist environs in which he lives.

Dan’s sister Fannie had been sold to a breeding plantation, separated from the rest of her family. Pragmatic and resilient, when The Lion and the Lamb begins, Fannie lives in the Rocky Mountains among the Bannock, married to a warrior she loves deeply, and grieving the death of one son and the kidnapping of another. She enlists the services of the iconic Sacajawea to attempt to reunite the family.

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River Woman was born Fannie, daughter of Esi and Kofi, Fante captured in West Africa. She is the fictional sister of the author's 4th Great Grandmother, Sarah. Both women were runaway slaves. Instead of remaining in an abusive marriage, the woman who was to become River Woman relocated to the west. Through a series of adventures, she became wife to the Bannock war chief, Swift Eagle.

The book finds her fighting for their romance. The two also strive to maintain the integrity of their family, as white encroachment threatens. During a fateful winter, she travels with her husband, children, and in-laws to Comancheria where the frontier dangers are even more pronounced. The Comanche are making a valiant stand against the encroachment of both Texans and Mexicans. When River Woman's and Swift Eagle's son is kidnapped, she enlists the services of the iconic Sacajawea, who had led Meriwether Lewis and William Clark all the way to the Pacific.

River Woman is designed to be read as a stand-alone. It also builds upon the story line from Sarah’s Song, Out of the Shadow of Darkness, The Courtship of Queens, and The Cloud’s Whisper, the first four books in the Esi Was My Mother series.

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During turbulent times, in The Cloud’s Whisper, passion peaks again and again. Dan Crispin, a man who escaped from slavery, spent his early years seducing and abandoning more women than he intended to remember. After nearly being killed by slave catchers he was nursed back to health by his first love. Feisty and steady Zephyrine grounds him as he becomes a successful pre-Civil War Cincinnati businessman. His redeemed life is filled with romance, dangerous work as an Underground Railroad conductor and the unending attempt to right past indiscretions.

Patience Starbuck, a wealthy Quaker abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, is the person who staked Dan to his entré into the stagecoach business. She is committed to healing both society’s shortcomings and her friends’ wounds. Without asking his approval she searches for Dan’s scattered children. Dan’s former lovers have relocated from the Rocky Mountains to the Trail of Tears, Rock Island to Michigan. Tragically one desperate mother gives her freeborn daughter to a slave plantation where she is sometimes called, “the almost white nigger.”

Despite widespread racism and the lack of human rights, Dan’s deep love for Zephyrine and a conscience based on his mother’s teachings fuels his climb from slave to legendary lover toward heroism.

The Cloud’s Whisper is designed to be read as a stand-alone. It also builds upon the story line from Sarah’s Song, Out of the Shadow of Darkness, and The Courtship of Queens, the first three books in the Esi Was My Mother series. Several characters have appeared in each of the previous books. Unlike Sarah’s Song, The Cloud’s Whisper is not fortified by family oral history. However, it is even more reliant on the historical record.

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The Courtship of Queens explores the struggles of Fannie and Dan, two siblings, who escaped from slavery in the 1820s. They are trying to create enduring romances in a world constructed to marginalize people with their profiles.

Following a failed romance with an abusive husband, Fannie had moved west with her best friend, Val, whose daughter is Dan’s child. Leading them into the wilderness are their new husbands, twin black trappers who have chosen the surname Lucky. Together with a multicultural group of mountain men, the families make their livings in the Rockies. The women are exhilarated by living conditions in an area where people are judged more by competency than by color. Can a woman who grew up a middle child, playing the role of a mediator and attempting to hide in plain sight, rise to find her true self as a decision maker in times of intense stress? How will Fannie negotiate living amidst true freedom and breathtaking beauty yet tempered everywhere by violence? Can she maintain the core of her identity when forced to shift between cultures that are each distinct from her life as a slave?

Meanwhile, Dan Crispin, who is married to Zephyrine, his childhood sweetheart from Fruits of the Spirit Plantation, seeks recognition as a gentleman. The prosperous and influential owner of a Cincinnati stagecoach line becomes an Underground Railroad conductor placing at risk lifelong dreams. With their growing family, the Crispins endure several mob attacks and befriend such famous people as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Charles Dickens. With the help of Ferguson and Starbuck, his Quaker friends, can Dan find the respect he so desperately wants while living in a border town that denies blacks such basic rights as voting and access to public education? Can he balance his love for Zephyrine with constant shadows caused by myriad sexual liaisons prior to settling down? Can he become the father he wishes to be when others have parented most of his children in his absence?

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Out of the Shadow of Darkness is the second book in the Esi Was My Mother series. Esi and Kofi, two kidnapped Fante from West Africa, gave birth to several children while enslaved in Virginia. Among them are Fannie and Dan, the two featured in this historical novel that is the product of research in countless documents and over 400 books, found in many archives and ten libraries located in five states.

Looking for a love that will last, Fannie escapes to Cincinnati and marries a husband who turns abusive whom she eventually leaves to continue her search for love as she moves west with her best friend Val, who has purchased her freedom. The two begin their own laundry business in St. Louis before marrying black mountain men and moving to the Rocky Mountains. There they encounter Kit Carson, Jim Beckwourth, and others who shape one of the few places in pre-Civil War America that actually values freedom for all. In addition to being the land of opportunity, the Rocky Mountains is also a frontier where violence explodes at the most unexpected times.

Dan has spent his early manhood breaking the hearts of women from many cultures but settles down after nearly dying when attacked by slave catchers. With Zephyrine, his beautiful, faithful wife by his side, he becomes a respected Cincinnati businessman who makes a valiant attempt to be seen as a gentleman. Instead of liberty and justice for all he has to contend with legal restrictions, repeated mob attacks, and the errors of his youth.

A powerful and steady support to Dan is his sister, Sarah, the daughter featured in Sarah’s Song, the first novel in the series. Her home is north of Cincinnati in a Quaker enclave famous for its underground railroad activity. Several Quakers and abolitionists including Harriet Beecher Stowe and Salmon P. Chase lend their support in a determined quest for social justice.

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Sarah, the daughter of two Fante kidnapped in their adolescence and sold into slavery, grows up on a plantation in Virginia, learning that nothing is more valuable than family. As an adult, how far will this phenomenal woman go to rescue a brother stolen by slave catchers? With her country denying freedom to her neighbors, how can her fabulously wealthy Quaker friend refuse the opportunity to embark on the adventure of a lifetime?

Sarah’s Song is the first installment of the trilogy, Esi Was My Mother, which runs from Esi and Kofi’s 1795 capture in West Africa until the firing of shots at Fort Sumter. The premier inspiration for Sarah’s Song was the true, culture-bending love story between an escaped slave from Culpeper, Virginia and a direct descendant of the Penn, Crispin, Stockton, and Wycliffe families. Another influence was family oral history about Sarah's brothers’ rejection of the racism they experienced in Ohio.

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