Meli's War---East of Orleans Series

The time: During the Civil War
The place: Georgia




Meli Holcomb is a beautiful, young, half-Cherokee woman from Vickery Creek, Georgia who struggles with her race, the Civil War invasion by General Sherman's troops and the death of her father. But nothing compares to the forbidden love she harbors for a Union officer, Lt. Colonel Case Hamilton.

As children, Meli and Case romped and played together along the Chattahoochee river, but once Case joined the Union army after going to West Point, everything changed for Meli and her family.

Sherman’s troops are now on the way and so is the end of the South as Meli knew it. She and her family are separated, and living in constant fear and danger.
Meli and her beloved black friend and former slave, Hattie, are taken prisoner and shipped off to the Confederate women’s prison in Louisville, Kentucky. A short time earlier Hattie had been raped and was pregnant. Meli tries to take care of the girl, find family members, and just stay alive.

The women’s prison is a worse nightmare than anything Meli could have imagined. Dr. Walker, a vicious, insane woman, beats the prisoners and starves them. Meli realizes she and Hattie must escape. Meli takes on Dr. Walker and comes close to killing her. When the two women finally get away from the prison, they are lost but find a place to hide at Sam Sullivan’s local saloon. Sullivan saves their lives and helps Meli recover from a shotgun wound she received when trying to find a place for her and Hattie to hide. All Meli knows is she and Hattie must find a way back to Vickery Creek. Or die trying.
But one more surprise is in store for Meli…Lt.Colonel Case Hamilton is in Louisville and when the two meet up after the years of being apart, Meli is torn between love and hate. She still loves Hamilton but hates him too for having become a Union soldier and possibly is even responsible for deaths in Meli’s family.


Renee' Irvin, author of "East of Orleans" has once again delivered a story steeped in the history of the civil war and the end of the old south."Meli's War" is the 2nd in the series of three novels that will be released as part of the "East of Orleans" saga.