“My brother killed Abraham Lincoln. That is my weight, my shame. While he remained at large, I was held captive in my home. I should have told the soldiers who came with guns drawn and bayonets at the ready this true thing: I might have stopped him, for I harbored him and kept his secrets. I was a pie safe locked tight and guilty as he.” Asia Booth Clarke was twenty-nine years old and pregnant when Union soldiers and Federal detectives stormed her Philadelphia home in search of her assassin-brother. John Wilkes Booth’s older sister had grown up in one of America’s most notoriously troubled but spectacularly acclaimed acting families.
“Johnny” and Edwin, her handsome brothers, were the matinee idols of the era. When John Wilkes Booth’s crime left the nation in furious mourning and the Booth family under a dark cloud of accusation, it was Asia who bore the brunt. Booth’s Sister was inspired by Asia Booth Clarke’s personal memoirs. Author, Civil War scholar and storyteller Jane Singer has masterfully imagined the family dynamics and intimate dilemmas that led to one of America’s most fateful crimes and left a sister’s life in shambles.
Jane Singer is a Civil War author and historian. She is currently writing the Alias Series,
a trilogy of young adult novels about a young girl who serves as a spy in the Civil War. Jane lives
with her husband and 2 dogs in Venice Beach, CA.