Chris Bohjalian
New York Times bestselling author of 25 books and playwright
Chris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-five books, including The Princess of Las Vegas, The Lioness, Hour of the Witch, Midwives, and The Flight Attendant, which was adapted in an Emmy Award winning Max series starring Kaley Cuoco. His other books include The Red Lotus, The Guest Room, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, The Sandcastle Girls, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Double Bind. His novels Secrets of Eden, Midwives, and Past the Bleachers were made into movies, and his work has been translated into more than thirty-five languages. He lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer. His newest historical fiction novel, The Jackal’s Mistress, is a heart-stopping Civil War “Romeo and Juliet,” inspired by a harrowing true story! An IndieNext and Amazon Editors’ Pick for March, and a Barnes & Noble Most Anticipated Book
“Within a world of violence and injustice, an unlikely hero emerges to save a wounded Union soldier: a southern woman whose loyalty lies with humanity more than any army. Through their common struggle for survival, Bohjalian constructs a brutal image of the bloodshed and fear that made up the Civil War, and the compassion and understanding that persists even in such terrifying times.” —Northshire Bookseller Michael Hueglin
The Jackal’s Mistress: A Novel (Hardcover)
By Chris Bohjalian
ISBN: 9780385547642
Published: Doubleday March 11th, 2025
Books
About The Jackal's Mistress
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER • #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • USA TODAY BESTSELLER • In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.
Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield.
And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy—but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?
A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.