The Hope Chest

Tilly smiled softly and took Lottie's smooth hand in her wrinkled one. "Child, sometimes we make plans for our lives. We says, 'I choose this.' But forces in this world take those choices away from us. Then we's got to look around and see what we got left. You see, there is one choice nobody and nothin' can take away from you." "What's that, Tilly?" "You's got the choice to either let what's happened crush you into being nothin' or you can choose to rise above it and survive and thrive in spite of anythin' that life throws at you." When Julie Ventura, from The Tin Box Secret, falls into a coma in 1969, she wakes up 1863 and into her previous life as Lottie Clark. Lottie learns that in spite of having a loving and supportive family, life can throw some curve balls at you and The Civil War has done just that. During the Siege of Vicksburg, the citizens' lives were changed dramatically through weeks of starvation, disease and death. Somehow, Lottie finds a way to survive in spite of her losses. But as a young woman in 1860s, she does not have the choices that would be available to her in 1960s. From Vicksburg, to New Orleans, to Manhattan and Stone Ridge, New York, The Hope Chest, the second book in The Tin Box Trilogy, is a heart wrenching story that brings into focus how our choices are affected by the society and times within which we live.