Forsaken

FORSAKEN LONG SUMMARY

“Forsaken,” the sequel to the best selling Civil War Christian novel “Victory in Defeat,” takes place immediately after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. It is the continuing story of Matthew and his brother, Luke Harcourt making their way back to their farm in the south-western part of Virginia. His ministry to the wounded and dying during the war created a burning desire in Matthew to serve God. On their way home, Mathew ministered to a war veteran and his new wife about marital; relationship. Finding his calling to preach God's word, Matthew is hired by his home church to replace their deceased preacher. After a marriage blessing ceremony, he talks with a woman who told him about couples in the neighboring towns who desired to rebuild their lives, start families and live together after the war without benefit of clergy as there wasn't any preachers available to preform the marriages. He marries his brother Luke and his long time girlfriend, Annabelle, and a week later marries his mother to his Uncle Mordecai. Matthew decides to ride a circuit of outlying towns preaching God's word, blessing marriages and counsellings the spiritually wounded. In the first town he visits, he meets an unusual woman, Lottie, who knows her own mind and what she wants. For the first time in his life, Matthew is infatuated by a woman. Her face is before his eyes as he rides to the next town. He sees her face in his mind when he tries to asleep; in his dreams. Caught up in a cold downpour preaching a funeral, he catches Pneumonia and borders between life and death. After his miraculous recovery, he decided to head home. He comes to a crossroad. Home is one way, Lottie is the other way. He heads the other way. After a week, preaching and ministering in Lottie's home town, they decide to marry. This brings up the problem of who marries a preacher when there is no other preacher available. They marry and later start out together on a fall missionary journey, become snowed in at Lottie's sinter and brother-in-law's farm by an early season three day blizzard which dumps over four feet of snow. Matthew and his brother-in-law are forced to trek the hundred feet to the barn each day throughout the blizzard to care for the livestock. Finally making it home six months after the blizzard, Matthew exorcised a cancer from his church before it spread throughout the whole congregation. Matthew Harcourt is a happy man. He has his God, he has his pregnant wife and he has his farm. Forsaken is the story of how he loses it all.