Out now · Torchflame Books · 2022
“An expertly told tale of loss, love, and second chances.”Kirkus Reviews
Torchflame Books
October 2022 · 380 pages
Historical fiction · Inspired by a true story
Out now
Life on the plantation was all seventeen-year-old John had ever known. His mother had been the property of the plantation owner, and in turn, so was John. Slavery had ended — but also, it had not.
When the wife of a plantation owner dies on a fateful night in 1887, John Billingsly makes the gut-wrenching decision to leave his mother and everything he knows to flee their slave cabin in Richmond, Virginia. Instructed by his mother to find a cousin in Mt. Hope, Alabama, John wends his way south in hope of a better life.
Reviews
“An expertly told tale of loss, love, and second chances.”
“A profound meditation on family and friendship. In a genre that has its ups and downs, Lost Souls Recovered proves an outstanding read and is recommended without reservation.”
“A fast-paced adventure that in many ways reminded me of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.”
The books
Out now
A historical novel inspired by a true story. After a death on a Virginia plantation in 1887, a young man flees south — toward kin, toward a name of his own, and into the long shadow of a war that has not finished with him.
Forthcoming
Twenty-one-year-old Sebastian Hawkins has a Yale degree, a future already drawn, and a story his family never proved: land taken from his great-great-great-grandfather, Pony Hawkins, in Lawrence County, Alabama. A county archivist finds a deed. In 1876, Pony bought an acre. Two years later, a paper calls the transfer a gift. A hundred and fifty years later, Sebastian fights to recover the land — and the name — that fear taught the family to leave buried.
In progress
Beta Reader
In progress
Clarkston McClaren is a teacher without a classroom, a father behind on the court order, and a novelist who believes the advance will make everyone whole. A beta reader named Sam tells him to put the book in a small town and make the past feel alive. The manuscript opens. So does Brighton County, Ohio — a town that would rather its history stay buried.
The author
Eric Walker is a lawyer, amateur genealogist, and family historian living in Ohio. His debut, Lost Souls Recovered, was published by Torchflame Books in 2022. A second novel, Belly of the Beast, is forthcoming. A third, Beta Reader, is in progress.
“I wanted to be an author more than a lawyer.”
I write stories that refuse to let the past remain buried. The archives tell us what happened. Fiction allows us to imagine what it felt like. Between those two realities lies the human heart — and that is where my stories live.
About Eric
Book talks
Eric is available now for Lost Souls Recovered. He speaks about the novel, genealogy as a path into fiction, and the unfinished business of Reconstruction. The forthcoming book is named; the house will follow when it is public.
Request a talkOccasional notes on Belly of the Beast, Beta Reader, and talks — not a weekly blast.