Writers from Margaret Mitchell to Eugenia Price and John Jakes have
shown that the market is enormous, dependable and insatiable for
authentically researched historical novels of the antebellum, Civil War
and Reconstruction period of the American South. For the past twenty years
and more, Jacquelyn Cook has been publishing successfully into this
lucrative and appreciative market. To date, her historical novels have
sold close to 500,000 copies and counting.
The River Between, first
published in 1985 as the first volume of Cook's five-volume,
multi-generational saga known as The River Series, has sold nearly
165,000 copies, is still in print and selling more than 20 years after
it's first release. The second in the series, The Wind Along the River,
published the following year, has sold nearly 100,000 copies and counting.
As recently as 2003, the entire River Series was collected into a
single volume called Magnolias, and has sold some 64,000 copies to
date. In addition, Wal-Mart ordered a special printing of 14,000 copies of
Magnolias, and sold 8,000 copies in the first month.
Cook's credentials to write
about this period could not be better. While she is known and celebrated
for the deep and accurate research that she does for each of her books,
another part of the appeal she brings to her readers is that the story of
the American South runs in her blood. Born into a family that is Georgia
bred for generations, she was raised on stories handed down from her great
grandmother, who experienced Sherman's march, and so many other first hand
experiences that were passed down to Cook as part of her own family
heritage.
Cook sold her first story to
Home Life Magazine in 1963. While she and her husband raised their two
children, she free lanced for a wide assortment of newspapers and
magazines. Coincidentally, she wrote some articles for the same editors at
The Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine who had published some of
Margaret Mitchell's early freelance work. Cook is past president of the
Georgia Branch of the National League of American Pen Women, and past
president of the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
She won the Writer of the Year Award, 1970 from the Atlanta Writers Club.
In 1987 she took second place in national competition from the National
League of American Pen Women in the adult book category for her novel, Image In the Looking Glass. In 1995 she won First Place from the
Georgia National League of American Pen Women for her historical novel
The Gates Of Trevalyan. Over the years she has won many awards from
the Georgia Writers Association, the Southeastern Writers Association, and
the Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists, for her articles on history,
religion, humor and fiction. Cook lives in Sumter County, Georgia on her
own working farm that, like Greenwood, produces cotton and cattle.
