Books

The abolitionist Garretts and the Slaver McCunes are border state natives still haunted by the moral ghost of the Garrett patriarch, Valentine, and the evil machinations of the McCune patriarch, Jake. Together, or on their own, family members experience, Slaughter’s Mountain, an Indian uprising on the Plains, a German uprising in Texas, as well as the battles of Second Manassas, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.They enter common homes and glittering mansions. They interact with historical characters as well as fictional, and along their journey, they visit the capitals of Richmond and Washington, allowing you the reader to peer behind the curtain, to participate in historical decision-making.I...

In 1861, Lincoln’s election caused eleven Southern states to break with the Union. The peculiar institution of slavery, its continuation and spread into the Western Territories became the sticking point.The Garrett family resides in Western Maryland, a border state that lies between the warring parties. There, opinions are as divided as the country, and emotions run hot. Because of their abolitionist leanings, the Garretts have their homestead burned. They have lost their patriarch, Valentine. His brother, James, falls at Bull Run. Their friend and Mennonite neighbor, Aaron, is lost at Ball’s Bluff. In the midst of it all, Toby, a little slave girl is rescued and taken in by the family a...

The Garrett Family faces an alarming situation. War is declared and they’re in thethick of it. On the border between the Confederacy and the Union, Marylandfamilies live on both sides of their brand-new, disconcerting border. Friends andneighbors are forced to take sides.The reader witnesses unrest in California and conflict in Arizona. Back East, greensoldiers flock to their flags and tragedy strikes at the Union debacle, Ball’s Bluff.Soon after, we stand with Confederate militia to watch the Union beaten again inthe first Battle of Antietam.Burned out for ministering to runaways, the Garrets sell their land and move inwith relatives closer to the Mason-Dixon. Amid it all, a slave girl ...

The Garretts, their friends, and family tell our American story-the story we didn't hear about in school.In Fire-Eaters , the second book in the Snakebit series, John Poniske skillfully shows how our Dis-United States came to be on a war footing. The humor, the humanity, and the horror blend in a tightly woven tale, as historical as it is fictional.Geoffrey Garrett acts as his family's conscience. Geoff's dead father, Valentine, acts as Geoff's compass in a world gone snakebit-crazy. The Garret and McCune families introduced in book one Prelude to War live in Maryland, a border state torn between abolitionists to the North and slavers to the South. The McCunes are slavers, the Garretts are n...

The Western Maryland, Garret family, struggle to maintain their farm as their neighbors argue the slavery issue. They live in a border state where folks take both sides and emotions run hot. Their stoic matriarch, known only as "Mother" holds the family together in the absence of her dead husband. The deceased patriarch, Valentine, was a giant of a man both in stature and character. He acts as the family conscience and mentor throughout the novel. It is his admonition that people who get snakebit think and act crazy which is how he viewed the state of the country when he died. Gabe the eldest and an adventurer, has wandered off to Bleeding Kansas. This has left taciturn Geoffrey, the spittin...

The Western Maryland, Garret family, struggle to maintain their farm as their neighbors argue the slavery issue. They live in a border state where folks take both sides and emotions run hot. Their stoic matriarch, known only as "Mother" holds the family together in the absence of her dead husband. The deceased patriarch, Valentine, was a giant of a man both in stature and character. He acts as the family conscience and mentor throughout the novel. It is his admonition that people who get snakebit think and act crazy which is how he viewed the state of the country when he died. Gabe the eldest and an adventurer, has wandered off to Bleeding Kansas. This has left taciturn Geoffrey, the spittin...