Writers conceive story ideas in various and sundry ways.

Sometimes they are solely figments of the imagination, while other times stories come from actual events in history.

Local author Jacquelyn Cook has done both in her new book, Image In The Looking Glass, (Zondervan Publishing House). She has incorporated a fictional story around the historical events at Andersonville and the Confederate prison there during the Civil war, weaving closely together real people from this period with fictional characters.

"Image In The Looking Glass is a novel of atmosphere and suspense with a historical background," said Mrs. Cook during a recent interview. "The story is about a young girl, Caroline Hannah, a student at Wesleyan Female College in Macon at the time of the Civil War, who was sent to Andersonville to stay with her mother’s two elderly female cousins on Looking Glass Plantation."

The book has an intricate plot, and double thread of suspense running throughout a murder with clues planted at intervals with the other mystery coming from something on the plantation.

"The story line is itself fictional as is Looking Glass Plantation, and everything that happens there came straight from my imagination," she revealed.

When the Caroline arrives at Looking Glass Plantation, she brings her dog with her, and this is where the Cook’s pet peek-a-poo comes into the story.

Mrs. Cook said when their son, John, married his wife, Lynne, the family dog, "Baby Dog" had an aversion to accepting the new family member and would go into hysterics. "Our dog would scream, not bark, and this is what planted the seed for my novel."

Mrs. Cook took this real life experience, using it in the novel with the heroine meeting Lt. Medlock, who is stationed at the Andersonville Prison. "Her dog immediately senses something wrong, and warns the heroine away from the Confederate lieutenant," said the author.

"Another time an experience of the real dog appears in the novels when I needed something to happen," said the petite author, "one day our dog disappeared and fell into a post hole and couldn’t get out and I incorporated this episode in my book."

Mrs. Cook dedicated "Image In The Looking Glass" to her daughter-in-law, Lynne Cook, the family dog, and to Grover Cleveland Pace, of Leslie.

"Many of the stories Mr. Pace, who is 101, told me I wove into the book," said Mrs. Cook. "His step-grandfather was a guard at Andersonville Prison during the Civil War, and his father, the late Gilford Pace, was a boy at the time."

She said Pace gave her a lot of first hand details such as the story of the witch in the book, as well as small details about farming at the time.

"Also, Mrs. Robert Hodges (Fannie) whose late husband’s family lived at Tudor Hall near Andersonville, shared letters and documents and stories," revealed the author, who also said she spent a lot of time researching old records, including the original records of the city of Andersonville kept in the office of Andersonvile Mayor Lewis Easterlin, and spent a lot of time in the village of Andersonville, and the cemetery soaking up the atmosphere.

Other helps to her were attending performances, on two separate occasions, of Sumter Players "The Andersonville Trial" and the Candlelight Tours at the Prison Park.

Image In The Looking Glass is Mrs. Cook’s third novel to be released in the period of a year. The others are The River Between, and The Wind Along The River, the first of a trilogy set in the romantic riverboat era. Also, the new novel is the second she has had released this year set in the period of the Civil War, and was recently recognized for this at the Dixie Council of Authors and Journalists annual convention.

She actually began writing Image In the Looking Glass long before the trilogies of the riverboat era, and submitted the to Zondervan.

"I began writing the novel in early 1980 and worked on it three years before sending it to Zondervan," said Mrs. Cook. "They said they liked it, but it didn’t fit their needs at the time. I thought it was just a nice brush off, but it wasn’t and they asked me to write the trilogy.

"After selling the trilogy to Zondervan, I revised and lengthened Image In The Looking Glass, and resubmitted the novel to the publisher and they accepted," she said.

Mrs. Cook, who is at her desk every morning by eight, says her most creative periods of writing are during the mornings, and afternoons are used for editing and research.

She freelanced for years and wrote articles for "Progressive Farmer" magazine for ten years, and also the Atlanta Journal-Constitution magazine section.

She is married to businessman, J. N. Cook and the couple has two grown children. Their son and daughter-in-law, John and Lynne Cook live in Americus, and their daughter, Carolyn and son-in-law Jack Nicholson are residents of Tallahassee. The Cooks have three grandchildren, Samantha and Jessica Cook, and Mathew Nicholson.