About the Book

Book: Lightning on a Quiet Night

Author: Donn Taylor

Genre: Historical romance

Release Date: Summer, 2014

In the years following World War II, a town too proud of its own virtues has to deal with its first murder.

Despite the implications of this crime, the town of Beneficent, Mississippi, population 479, tries desperately to hold onto its vain self-image. The young veteran Jack Davis holds that idyllic vision of the town and tries to share it with Lisa Kemper, newly arrived from Indiana. But she is repelled by everything in town. While the sheriff tries to find the murderer, Jack and Lisa’s contentious courtship reveals the town’s strange combination of astute perceptions and surprising blind spots. Then they stumble onto shocking discoveries about the true nature of the town. But where will those discoveries lead? To repentance or to denial and continuation in vanity?

Click here to get your copy!

My Thoughts:

The town of Beneficent is full of good people. Especially when all but one of their boys return from World War 2. They are also a town filled with heroes. But something isn't right and it manifests itself in the murder of one of their own.

Lisa Kemper is new in town and has put her life on hold to help her father. She is bitter about this and sees no good in this town at all. She even has pre-judged and thinks she may know who the killer is.

Jack Davis has come back to the town he loves so much and sees nothing but good. This town and his memories is what got him through the injustices and inhumanity he saw while fighting. He likes Lisa and would like to show her how great the town is, but she is a bit closed off to that.

This was a good and at times scary mystery with a touch of romance. I liked reading how people were trying to pick up their lives after the war, start families, and move forward. Unfortunately, darkness can seep in anywhere and can upend lives- especially when everyone is blaming someone else or when they just think they can't fall.

I received a copy of this novel from the author. I was not required to post a positive review and all views and opinions are my own.

About the Author

Raised in Mississippi, Donn Taylor led an Infantry rifle platoon in the Korean War, served with Army aviation in Vietnam, and worked with air reconnaissance in Europe and Asia. Afterward, he earned a PhD in Renaissance literature and taught literature at two liberal arts colleges. His published works include six suspense novels and a book of poetry. He is a frequent speaker at writers’ conferences. He lives near Houston, TX, where he writes fiction, poetry, and essays on current topics.

More from Donn

There’s a very personal background to my historical romance Lightning on a Quiet Night. When I was seventeen, my parents moved from central Mississippi to teach at a college in the northeastern corner of the state. I quickly came to love the region’s wooded hills and small, fertile valleys, and I developed an appreciation for the people who lived there. That region was also where I met Mildred, who taught me the meaning of love. The critical stage of our courtship occurred when the area was snowbound. By the time the snow melted (with no help from us, of course) we were engaged.

So when, decades later, I came to write a historical novel, I set it in a fictitious town in that region, and in 1948, the time period Mildred and I had known together. I wanted to write about love, of course, but I also wanted to write about the everyday citizens of that region—the storekeepers, small-town bankers, farmers—people of good will who seemed never to be accurately represented in fiction.

Readers will find the main focus of the novel to be romance, suspense, and comedy—with a snowbound love scene, of course. But as the writing progressed, the scope of the story broadened. What would happen if a town too proud of its virtues had to deal with its first murder? How would its citizens struggle against the reality of human imperfection? I’d started out to write about love and solving a murder but found myself grappling with the most basic problems of human life.

How successful was this? Readers will decide, but I can say I was gratified when Publishers Weekly wrote that the novel had “passion and heart” and showed “a keen understanding of the human condition.”

Among my books, this was Mildred’s favorite, and she helped in many ways during the writing. She lived long enough to read its dedication to her and to see the novel contracted, though not to see it in print.

But enough of the personal: Readers want mostly to be entertained by a good story, and I hope that is what I have given them.