Nor the Arrow That Flies by Day

Harpers Ferry, Virginia, 1859.

As the school year comes to a close, eleven-year-old Iris Clay is full of hope and wonder. She seeks to learn everything there is to know about the world so that she can become a great teacher. She wishes for a worthy companion for her widowed father. She tries to make sense of the actions of the local bully. But like everyone in town, she cannot imagine the explosive event that is to come that autumn, nor the many ways in which it will forever change the lives of everyone she knows. Because eighteen months before the first shot is fired at Fort Sumter, the everyday citizens of Harpers Ferry will become helplessly entangled in an infamous occurrence, a lightning strike that will spark the fuse leading to Civil War.