Author Photo by Sarah Merian, Photography

Meet the Author

Anne Mackay-Smith was born in Virginia and grew up in New England, so an interest in the Civil War was almost inevitable. Spurred by a fascination with writing and reading from an early age, she studied literature at Princeton University and headed The Daily Princetonian. She subsequently worked as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and as a grant writer for non-profit groups. She lives in northwest Connecticut.

Members of her family have lived on a farm in northern Virginia for nearly a hundred years; much of the action of Death at Bitterwood Clearing, her first novel, is set in the early nineteenth century house where her parents still reside.

Cheryl Mendelson,

novelist and author of the "Morningside Heights" trilogy

“It pulled me right in and along— I just inhaled it! The depiction of the physical, social, and emotional realities of the time and place is terrific—integral to the story, learned, and utterly believable.”

Sunset over the Shenandoah Valley. Photo by Catharine Kempson

“Few things are what they seem to be in this richly detailed, subtle, and altogether satisfying mystery, set in 1861 Virginia. Anne Mackay-Smith has fashioned a tale that penetrates the political passions and moral ambivalences of the early Civil War.”

Dana Mack,

author of "All Things that Deserve to Perish", a novel of Wilhelmine Germany

Sunset over the Shenandoah Valley. Photo by Catharine Kempson

"This Civil War mystery/thriller hooks readers with its characters, especially Adair Stanford. Wife, mother, farmer, mystery solver, and potential lover, she is the kind of strong female character readers will root for."

Sunset over the Shenandoah Valley. Photo by Catharine Kempson

Anastasia Rubis,

author of the biographical novel "Oriana"

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Anne Mackay-Smith

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