The Shame & Glory Saga Series

A major novel of the American slave trade that annihilates the myths of black African docility and white humanity on an unforgettable nightmare voyage that takes the reader into the hearts and minds and private hells of the slavers as well as the enslaved.  At a time when nearly every civilized nation, including the United States, had outlawed the trade, the American flag still flew from the masts of hundreds of slaving ships off the west coast of Africa. Aboard one such ship, the Jubilation, is Captain Edward Horneby, a quietly lethal man for whom slaving is a way of life and a chance to play God. Below decks, in a hold overflowing with degradation and death, is Osai Adoko, a proud Ashanti warrior who waits to prove that chains do not make a man a slave.  And there are Hollister and Dunbar—one, a sadistic youth who uses slaves to cure his boredom; the other, a sensitive journalist traveling incognito who intends to expose the atrocities of the trade, yet is forced himself into becoming the owner of a beautiful child-woman.  The action moves swiftly, from a ruinous jungle slave factory to an opulent African court, from a bizarre shore leave, to a bloody sea battle, to rampant depravity aboard the Jubilation itself. With mounting tension between whites and blacks, the book builds toward a brilliant, horrifying climax. Jerrold Mundis brings an era of shame into true perspective in a novel of startlingly powerful significance.  ~~  “A superior adventure yarn, but not for the squeamish. The action is quick, gory and rings with verisimilitude. Hair-raising adventure on the high seas.”  —Publishers Weekly  “The dramatic actions snap along with sea battles, slave rebellions, and moral conflicts, all played out by thoroughly believable characters and building to a shattering climax.”  —Library Journal  OVER 4 MILLION JERROLD MUNDIS PRINT-BOOKS SOLD!

A raw and unbridled novel of slavery in the Deep South. Shattered by the forces of unrest and upheaval that preceded the Civil War, the Ackerly Plantation is caught up in a frenzy of violence, cruelty, and hatred. Here is the brutal reality of slavery--of men and women sold at auction--of young girls forced to gratify their master's lust--of slaves tortured until their only remaining instinct is to strike back . . . to kill. And the throbbing passions that bind master to slave just as powerfully as slave to master. Delia: Devoted young mother and wife, with no rights but those of a slave--to lose her child in a heartless accident, and to flee her husband to flee her master's lust. Jud: Delia's husband. He dared to love her with the fullness of his being. But one of the wealthy well-bred ladies of the plantation wanted him for her personal pleasure. And Samuel Ackerly, lord of all he surveys, wandering lonely and in pain through the slave quarters at night looking for someone to talk to . . . while Amanda, his wife, reigns in the Great House intent on overthrowing him in favor of her son, Richard. Richard, the destroyed and the destroyer, the bringer of horror. And many more. In this hard-hitting second volume of his epic, sweeping Shame and Glory Saga, Jerrold Mundis reveals with savage realism the depravity and degeneration of the final days of slavery in the Deep South in a shocking and unforgettable novel. ~~ Praise for the Shame & Glory novels: "Superior . . . but not for the squeamish. The action is quick, gory and rings with verisimilitude." - Publishers Weekly "The dramatic actions snap along with sea battles, slave rebellions, and moral conflicts, all played out by thoroughly believable characters and building to a shattering climax." - Library Journal "A hard, violent antidote to the Southern Romance . . . an historical anger seldom presented before." - Book World OVER 4 MILLION JERROLD MUNDIS PRINT-BOOKS SOLD!

A brutal saga of the Civil War—and a regiment of fugitive slaves that thirsted for revenge. Scarred, branded, unchained, they were the First Southern Volunteers, a Union regiment of fugitive slaves suddenly armed and free to avenge a lifetime of pain and degradation: some with a savagery that knew no bounds and offered no mercy. Labe’s clowning had concealed the dark passion within him, even from himself. But the war changed all that—he had the gun now. Here was power. Here was something that would make him whole. Here was godliness. Vulture, a towering giant, was unwaveringly loyal to his men. They trusted him. Powerful, deeply intelligent, hungry to learn, he was willing to go to any length to defend them. And did. Geoffrey Williams had been born a freeman in Massachusetts, was privileged, educated. He had long ached in his heart for his enslaved brothers and volunteered early for the First Southern. Now he was lost and confused amid their boisterous immorality, shattered by the killing, and feared for his mind and soul. Here, too, are the women who loved them: Rona, young, beautiful, fierce, who returned again and again to the South to guide fugitives and runaways up North to freedom. She needed no one, wanted no one, she thought—till she saw Vulture again. Dido’s husband had been killed by a chaser’s hounds. She knew Labe’s heart, the hurt beneath his fury; he sensed the tenderness and longing in hers. They comforted one another, though she dreaded what might become of him. And the white officers who led them: opportunists, idealists, misfits, cynics, and hardened professionals. Men like the earnest and naïve Colonel Mathew Spearing, the contemptuous Captain Thomas Ebery, and the unyielding, stoic Emory Woodson who was blind to the color of his troops and cared only that they fight well and survive. Here is the Civil War at its most brutal and violent, from vicious early skirmishes to the liberation of slaves from plantations, from deepening camaraderie to a blood-soaked debacle, from the madness of the Southern irregulars of Bryerson’s Butchers to the final, climactic storming of the massive Confederate Fortress Blackstone. This shattering novel—the third in his epic, sweeping Shame and Glory Saga—could only have been written by Jerrold Mundis, the bestselling author of Slave and Slave Ship. ~~ Praise for the Shame & Glory novels: “Superior . . . but not for the squeamish. The action is quick, gory and rings with verisimilitude.” —Publishers Weekly “The dramatic actions snap along with sea battles, slave rebellions, and moral conflicts, all played out by thoroughly believable characters and building to a shattering climax.” —Library Journal “A hard, violent antidote to the Southern Romance . . . an historical anger seldom presented before.” —Book World OVER 4 MILLION JERROLD MUNDIS PRINT-BOOKS SOLD!

A hard, unflinching novel of men – black and white – locked in a struggle against themselves, each other, and the unforgiving landscape of the American West.  There is only so much a man can take, and the men of the Second Colored Cavalry had taken enough. So in spit-shine dress uniforms, on the regiment’s finest horses, a group of them rode into the town of Roxbury Run, tied their mounts to the hitching rail, and walked into the Dead Ringer Saloon. . . .  Where they were not wanted.  Cable Boone: A black cavalry trooper with a hard-won Medal of Honor, now an outlaw, alone and running for his life, fighting to survive.  John Hadley Small: A white man who had lived the brutal life necessary to the hunting down and killing of a man. His clan wanted bloody vengeance for the death of one of their own and John Hadley Small intended to get it for them.  Deacon Rufe Cook: A black godfearing Christian and professional gunman. A killer torn by the desires that raged within him, which he found he could no longer deny.  Time was running out for them as they each closed in on his destiny, and each other.  In this fifth and final volume of his epic, sweeping Shame and Glory Saga, Jerrold Mundis, brings to a close the powerful and poignant story of a people stolen into bondage, worked under the lash, fighting for their liberty in Union blue, again afterward in the deep South, and finally stepping into a genuine freedom in the American West.  And with their story is another, too, of the white men and women who enslaved them or worked to free them, who hated them or loved them, who fought against them or alongside them - and whose own fate was inextricably bound to theirs.  ~~  Praise for the Shame & Glory novels:  "Superior . . . but not for the squeamish. The action is quick, gory and rings with verisimilitude."  - Publishers Weekly  "The dramatic actions snap along with sea battles, slave rebellions, and moral conflicts, all played out by thoroughly believable characters and building to a shattering climax."  - Library Journal  "A hard, violent antidote to the Southern Romance . . . an historical anger seldom presented before."  - Book World  OVER 4 MILLION JERROLD MUNDIS PRINT-BOOKS SOLD! 

A savagely real novel of degradation, violence and slaves without chains. They were the hunted, the outcasts, the men who had fired guns too quickly and the woman who had been raped too often. There was no place for them in the white world. They were free black men and women driven to a womb of hell by incredible brutality—and their only salvation lay in the merciless justice of the swamp itself. Survival of the fittest: No white man had ever wanted Hellbottom swamp. Not even the land-hungry hordes of newly freed slaves tried to settle it. But the outcasts, the hunted, did—and it changed them. They became hard, wary, their eyes caught the smallest movements, their ears the slightest sounds. The swamp punished even the most simple mistakes with death, so they, like all other creatures in Hellbottom, were the finest of their kind. They were black, ruthless, deadly and waiting . . . and one day the hunters came. Vulture: A black giant of a man who’d gone to war for his freedom, then brought his hopes of a new world to the halls of Congress only to be betrayed. Now he was back home—in a world that wanted him dead. Comfort: She was strong, powerful and needed no man. If she took one—when she took one—it was on her terms. As Vulture learned. In the end, her grief and her rage at the whites over what they had ripped away from her would know no limits. Woodson: Once he had lived to fight. Blind to the color of the troops he had led as a white officer in the war, he had cared only that they fight well and survive. Now all he wanted peace. But neither side would give him that. Thistle: The conjure-woman loved her preacher husband. But when he dragged her to a stream and forced baptism upon her she was terrified that her powers had been stolen away from her and that she could not protect him or her children any longer. And many more, all of them living and loving in Hellbottom swamp. Waiting for the day they knew would come—and did. ~~ Praise for the Shame & Glory novels: “Superior . . . but not for the squeamish. The action is quick, gory and rings with verisimilitude.” —Publishers Weekly “The dramatic actions snap along with sea battles, slave rebellions, and moral conflicts, all played out by thoroughly believable characters and building to a shattering climax.” —Library Journal “A hard, violent antidote to the Southern Romance . . . an historical anger seldom presented before.” —Book World OVER 4 MILLION JERROLD MUNDIS PRINT-BOOKS SOLD!