Robert Hicks Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Robert Hicks
Robert Hicks was born on January 30, 1951 in West Palm Beach, Florida. In 1974, he moved to Williamson County, Tennessee and lived close to the Bingham Community at “Labor in Vain”, which was his late eighteenth century log cabin.

Robert’s interests stayed varied, even while working as a music publisher and in artist management in both alternative rock and country music. He served as “Curator of Vibe” for the corporation while working as a partner in B. B. King’s Blues Clubs in Orlando, Los Angeles, Nashville, and Memphis.

Robert was a lifelong collector and he was the first Tennessean to be listed among Art & Antique’s Top 100 Collectors in America. His collection focused on so called ‘outsider art’ by artists like Southern Material Culture, Tennesseana, Howard Finster, and B. F. Perkins.

Robert served as curator on the exhibition, Art of Tennessee, at the First Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. It was a seven year endeavor from conception while he sat at his kitchen table to its actual opening, in September of 2003. He was also the co-editor of the exhibition’s critically acclaimed and award winning catalog, Art of Tennessee.

“The Widow of the South” was born out of his many years of work at Carnton and his passion for the preservation of the remaining fragments of the battlefield. And one accidental meeting with Shelby Foote (an author and Civil War historian), he got further encouragement to finish a historical novel about this battle.

In writing the novel, his hope was to bring national attention back to this moment in our nation’s history, the impact of those five bloody hours played in making us a nation, and in preservation of the sites linked to the story. It was critically acclaimed upon its September 1, 2005 release, and it entered the New York Times Bestseller List after just a week out. It was acclaimed as being comparable to other literary works on the Civil War including “The Killer Angels” and “Gone with the Wind”.

The Tennessean named him “Tennessean of the Year” in December of 2005, for the impact that “The Widow of the South” had on Tennessee, preservation, and heritage tourism.

As a writer, his essays on regional history, music, and southern culture have appeared in numerous publications over the years. He wrote op-eds for The New York Times on contemporary politics in the South, and was a regular contributor to Garden & Gun.

In his spare time, he liked gardening, even though, in full truth, he always knew he should have been out jogging.

Robert died from cancer at the age of 71 close to Franklin, Tennessee on February 25, 2022.

“The Widow of the South” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2005. Tennessee in 1864. Near a small town called Franklin, on a late autumn day, 10,000 men will lie dying or dead in a battle which will change many lives forever. None of them are going to be more changed then Carrie McGavock, who finds that her home’s being taken over by the Confederate army and used as their field hospital. Taking charge, she finds the courage to face up to the horrors all around her and, in doing so, finds her cause.

A tired young Southern soldier, out on the battlefield, drops all of his guns and charges forward headlong right into Yankee territory, holding just the flag of his company’s colors. He manages to survive and gets brought to the hospital. Carrie sees this willingness to die, and decides that day, in her house, that she won’t allow him to. In the agony-filled days and weeks which follow, each find a form of mutual healing which neither believes is possible.

In this extraordinary debut novel which is based on a true story, Robert Hicks has written an epic of heroism and love set against the madness of the American Civil War.

The novel is a beautifully written novel, and readers loved the book and the value the story places on the lives of these soldiers that fought for their beliefs, and the woman that wouldn’t ever forget about them.

“A Separate Country” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2009. Set in the years following the Civil War, this is based on John Bell Hood’s incredible life. He was arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army, as well as one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general following the Battle of Antietam. However the Civil War marked him forever.

At Gettysburg, he lost use of his left arm. And at the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg had to be amputated. Beginning anew after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 babies with her, including three sets of twins. However fate had other plans for him. Crippled by war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortunes, Hood just had one final foe to fight. Yellow Fever.

This is the heartrending account of a good and decent man that struggled with his inability to admit his failures, and the tale about those that taught him to love, and be loved, and ended up transforming him in the process.

“The Orphan Mother” is the third stand alone novel and was released in 2016. One remarkable woman’s quest to get justice.

Mariah Reddick, after the Civil War, is the former slave to Carrie McGavock (the “Widow of the South”) has quietly built a new life for herself as midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee. However when Theopolis, her ambitious and politically minded grown son, gets murdered, Mariah (who is no stranger to loss), finds that her world is once more breaking apart. How could this have happened? And who wanted him dead?

Mariah’s journey to uncover the truth leads her to some unexpected people, which includes George Tole, who’s a recent arrival to the town, fleeing from a tough past of his own. She is ultimately forced to face the truths of her own past.

Brimming with the historical research and vivid prose that’s won Robert Hicks recognition as a master storyteller.