Celebrate Lit / March 11, 2025

Tides of Healing

About the Book Tides of Healing

Book: Tides of Healing

Author: Sandra Merville Hart

Genre: Christian Historical Romance

Release date: February 11, 2025

A Southern belle fights to reclaim her home, but will her spying destroy the Union officer she never meant to love?

Savannah Adair has endured the unimaginable, hiding in a cave while her beloved Vicksburg was under siege. With the city now occupied by Union soldiers, Savannah cannot stand by and do nothing. So when one of the gaunt, half-starved Confederate prisoners asks her to spy for the South, she can’t refuse the chance to take back her home.

First Lieutenant Travis Lawson takes pride in the Union army’s hard-fought victory, but he quickly realizes that the challenges of rebuilding and reconciliation are just beginning . . . and not everyone is appreciative of the changes he’s making. Namely, the fiery and alluring Savannah Adair. Despite their differing loyalties and the societal divide between them, Travis cannot deny the growing feelings he has for her.

When he is tasked with finding Southern spies in Vicksburg and he captures a female spy, Travis is forced to consider that the woman he’s beginning to love may be the enemy.

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My Thoughts on Tides of Healing

Tides of Healing is the sixth book in a fun series about the Civil War and the spies that helped both sides as the war raged. I so wanted to say helped both sides with their victory but that doesn’t make any sense since only one side could win the war. But they did both have victories throughout the war and a lot of that was due to the spies working unnoticed and unseen behind the lines.

This series follows six women as they experience life during the Civil War. For this particular novel we are back in Vicksburg and visiting the third of a trio of friends who make up books four, five, and six.

Savannah is our heroine in this novel. She’s a southern belle but she’s watched all that she loves being ravished by the war and the Union army. So it’s a no-brainer for her to accept the commission given to her by a starving Confederate prisoner to spy and report her findings.

Enter 1st Lt Travis. He’s charged with finding the spies within Vicksburg. And once he catches one female spy he begins to wonder if the woman who is beginning to capture his heart might also be a spy.

And let the story roll from there!

This is a decidedly Christian novel which I love. It’s also a story that you’re going to want to read. It is book six in a series. I thoroughly believe you need to read all of the books and read them in order to get the most out of this novel. You could possibly read this as a stand-alone but it is much better read as part of the series.

I have voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book which I received from Celebrate Lit. All views expressed are only my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC regulations.

About the Author of Tides of Healing

Sandra Merville Hart, award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of inspirational historical romances, loves to discover little-known yet fascinating facts from American history to include in her stories. Her desire is to transport her readers back in time. She is also a blogger, speaker, and conference teacher.

More from Sandra

As I typed away on this final book in my Spies of the Civil War Series, it felt as if I’d written the entire series to tell this story.

Previously, I had felt a similar importance of an as-yet-unpublished two-book contemporary series, but the sense that the whole series climaxed with the final book was as surprising as it was welcome.

Because it seemed as if everything that happened in all the earlier books culminated in Book 6 for me as an author. Its significance reverberated in my soul while still researching the events…and weeks before I sat to pen the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence.

That sense of importance made this book difficult to begin. The early chapters took far longer to write than normal.

I believe that those who only read Tides of Healing will have a satisfying, complete story.

Those who read the entire series in order—or at least Books 4-6 set in Vicksburg—will experience a deeper impact as the characters’ stories build on one another.

There is a song in Tides of Healing. As an author, the impact of the lyrics within the story preceded it, meaning that I knew a certain song would play a significant role while still in the research phase.

Let me explain.

When I’m researching a story, I read a variety of nonfiction resources including diaries, journals, and newspaper accounts. My research for Vicksburg during the Civil War led me to song lyrics written by the enslaved.

African American Spirituals, also called Negro Spirituals, were sung before and after the Civil War. These Christian songs served a variety of purposes beyond bolstering hope and faith during dark days. They told stories about Biblical characters like Moses. Some comforted the sorrowful and some rejoiced with the joyful. They were sung in churches, in camp meetings, and in the fields.

They often contained secret messages.

“Home” in a song can refer to Heaven, but the secret meaning is a free country. Author Frederick Douglas had been a former slave. He wrote that the lyrics to “O Canaan, Sweet Canaan” signified more than a hope of Heaven. Repeated singing of the lyrics “I am bound for the land of Canaan” announced an intention to go North, their Canaan.

The Underground Railroad is a theme in Tides of Healing. In 1828, Reverend John Rankin built his home on a hill overlooking the Ohio River in Ripley, Ohio. As a station on the Underground Railroad, this home was easily seen from the opposite side of the river in the slave state of Kentucky.

Runaways waited for a boat to take them across the river.

It surprised me to learn that the lyrics of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” are about this station. “I looked over Jordan and what did I see?” refers to the Ohio River. The band of angels are people who rowed them across the wide river to the free state of Ohio.

Neither of these songs is referenced in Tides of Healing. The tune that is in my story was a popular spiritual leading up to the war. I listened to it many times. The message took root in my heart long before it affected my characters.

My research trip to Vicksburg’s battlefield and museums inspired the writing of Streams of Courage, Book 4, River of Peril, Book 5, and Tides of Healing, Book 6.

Avenue of Betrayal, Book 1, is set in the Union capital of Washington City (Washington DC) in 1861, where a surprising number of Confederate sympathizers and spies lived. Boulevard of Confusion and Byway to Danger are set in Richmond, the Confederate capital in 1862. Actual historical spies touch the lives of our fictional family.

The heroines in Books 1 – 3 are two sisters and their cousins. Another set of characters begins with Book 4, and three friends are the heroines in Books 4 -6.

Through both real and fictional characters, this series highlights the activities spies were involved in and some of the motives behind their decisions.

I invite you to read the whole Spies of the Civil War Series!