The Token is the prequel to Grand View, my first novel, and the second book in a planned trilogy. Much of The Token is based upon research I conducted for my doctoral dissertation at the University of South Carolina. Set just before and during the early years of the Civil War, it tells the story of Jack Redden, a wealthy Virginia planter's son. Jack's saga begins at The Citadel in Charleston, where his perfectly planned military life takes an abrupt and unforeseen turn. His family's wealth and connections take him next to Harvard University, where Jack excels in agricultural science with big plans to improve production on his father's large tobacco plantation, Flowerdew, in Surry County, Virginia. Back home, Jack is engaged to Jasmine Trueblood, the daughter of a Surry County planter even richer than the Reddens. But the war changes everything.Jack finds himself marching off with the Rebels to defend values he ultimately finds questionable. At the famous First Battle of Manassas, Jack is a hero and made a Captain in the Confederate army. However, that glory is quickly shot down in the Virginia dirt, and within months he finds himself a severely wounded prisoner of war in a Union hospital. There, he is rotting away with the rest, until he meets Genevieve, a nurse assigned to his section of the hospital.Genevieve changes everything.Desire - Danger - TabooJack Redden's life will never be the same