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@RABTBookTours #RABTBookTours #LongLostMidwife #SkyeSmith #HistoricalFiction

Historical Fiction | Race & Identity | Women’s Stories | 1930s America

Date Published: September 19, 2025

Publisher: MindStir Media

Pamela appears to be a privileged young white socialite, newly married and expecting her first child. But beneath the polished surface lies a restless, unsettled woman struggling against the suffocating expectations placed upon her. As her pregnancy advances, Pamela becomes fixated on one thing: finding Miss Minnie, the Black midwife who delivered her at home in 1911.

Her request ignites fierce resistance. Both families condemn the idea, and Pamela’s husband, Frank, fearing scandal and loss of control, tightens his grip—bringing in relatives to monitor her movements and even hiring surveillance to ensure she never makes contact with the midwife. Determined and increasingly reckless, Pamela secretly pressures her Black maid to help locate Miss Minnie, setting in motion a chain of events neither family can contain.

What begins as a quiet domestic drama escalates into a volatile confrontation with race, power, and truth. As long-buried histories surface, the search for a midwife becomes a catalyst for racial tension, betrayal, and violence—raising the chilling question: will this birth end in life… or murder?

Long Lost Midwife starts with measured restraint and builds relentlessly toward a tempestuous, unforgettable conclusion. It is a haunting exploration of white blindness, Black resilience, and the fragile illusions that sustain privilege in early 20th-century America.

● Thought-provoking historical fiction

● Novels examining race, class, and gender

● Character-driven stories set in pre-Civil Rights America

● Books that begin quietly and end with devastating force

During the final ten years of a professional career, Smith moderated the Plymouth Writers Group, a MeetUp-based genre writing collective composed of engineers, doctors, legal professionals, technical writers, and MFA graduates. Within this collaborative environment, Smith completed first drafts of three novels, with two additional works developed independently.

Smith holds a degree in History from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, an academic foundation that profoundly shapes the thematic and contextual grounding of the work. Historical setting, for Smith, is never decorative—it is the backbone of character behavior and moral conflict.

Another significant creative influence comes from many years singing in Sonomento, a Minneapolis-based operatic choir active until 2024. Immersion in opera introduced Smith to the disciplined exactness of musical phrasing and libretto, where text is fluid, expressive, and shaped by emotional register. That sense of linguistic “plasticity” carries directly into Smith’s prose style.

Long Lost Midwife reflects these influences in a novel that begins with restraint and builds toward controlled chaos—examining race, power, and identity in 1930s America with precision, tension, and historical depth.

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When Ruth, a modern-day CIA counterintelligence officer, uncovers signs of a mole no one believes exists—a potential fourth Soviet spy left over from the Cold War—her investigation is abruptly derailed by an impossible event. Thrown back through time to the American Revolutionary War, Ruth finds herself face-to-face with Agent 355, the legendary—and still unidentified—female spy of George Washington’s Culper Ring.

Separated by 250 years yet bound by shared instincts, courage, and tradecraft, the two women quickly recognize each other as fellow intelligence officers. Together, they uncover a covert plot that, if left unchecked, will alter the course of history itself—resulting in a chilling alternate reality: the British States of America.

When Ruth returns to the present, the world she knew is gone. The United States no longer exists. Instead, she is working for MI7, piecing together clues that link her failed mole hunt to the catastrophic change she triggered in 1780. To restore history—and democracy—Ruth must find a way to repair the past without destroying the future.

If Two of Them Are Dead reimagines Agent 355 as the founding mother of American intelligence, bringing her out of historical anonymity and into a gripping narrative that celebrates the often-unrecognized role of women in espionage. The novel explores how effective spycraft transcends time—relying on deception close to truth, strategic disinformation, vigilance, and counter-surveillance—while highlighting the unique advantages women have historically brought to intelligence work precisely because they were underestimated.

Blending spy thriller, historical fiction, and science fiction, this novel is both a pulse-pounding adventure and a reflection on the enduring threats to democracy. Ruth’s unresolved mole investigation seamlessly sets the stage for future books in the series—without leaving readers stranded on a cliffhanger.

Perfect for fans of espionage thrillers, time-travel fiction, Revolutionary War history, and readers eager to uncover America’s best-kept secrets as the nation approaches its semiquincentennial.

Bennett’s analysis and leadership played a critical role in shaping early U.S. counterterrorism strategy and later supported the global manhunt for bin Laden following 9/11. Throughout her career, she was known for intellectual rigor, moral clarity, and an unwavering commitment to public service.

Her work and expertise have been featured in major documentaries and media outlets, including Netflix, Showtime, HBO, PBS, 60 Minutes, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and The New York Times, as well as leading podcasts such as Intelligence Matters, True Spies, The Burn Bag, Spy Chat, and In the Room.

Drawing on decades of real-world intelligence experience, Bennett now brings her deep understanding of espionage, history, and human sacrifice into fiction—crafting stories that illuminate the often-hidden individuals whose courage helped shape nations. Her writing bridges historical intelligence, national security, and the untold contributions of women whose legacies deserve recognition.

https://linktr.ee/nationalsecuritymom

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