About The Book
In the third novel of Zelma Glover-Willis’s historical fiction series, love collides with legacy as former Klansman-turned-NFL rookie Billy Joe Farmer and his Black wife, Edna Lee, fight to build a life the racist South doesn’t want them to have.
When Fear Was Their Only Weapon
Chicago, 1976. Billy Joe Farmer steps onto an NFL field carrying two burdens: the glare of sudden fame and the shame of a past he’s desperate to outrun. His marriage to Edna Lee McCluskey, brilliant, proud, and unmistakably Black, becomes both his refuge and his rebellion. Back home in Mississippi, the men who once called him brother in the Klan see their “traitor” on national television and choose violence as payback.
As winter closes in, the couple retreats to a secluded cabin, hoping for a few quiet days together. Instead, they face a home invasion that tests Billy Joe’s resolve and Edna Lee’s ingenuity in the most terrifying way.
When an overseas job offer tempts Edna Lee toward Paris, old wounds and new dreams collide, until a single gunshot shatters their reunion and forces them to reckon with how far hatred will follow.
When Fear Was Their Only Weapon is a tense, tender story about an interracial marriage under siege, the cost of redemption, and the courage it takes to protect love in a world engineered to destroy it. It asks what real change looks like, and what it demands from the people brave enough to try.
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When Fate & Justice Meet
It was the third week in June, and Billy Joe knew if he was ever going to tell Edna Lee how he felt about her, he had to do it soon. But how and when—and more frightening for him, would she reject him? Other than kindness, she had given him no clue how she felt, which, oddly enough, made him even more attracted to her. When Jane Henshaw, a naïve, young Quaker, elopes with John McCluskey, a Southern gentleman, she never imagined she would become the sole owner of a slave plantation in the Mississippi Delta—something completely foreign to her upbringing. A century later, Bill Joe Farmer finds himself sentenced to live there for six months after burning a cross on the lawn of one of his Black teammates. What he learns about the residents and about himself gives him a unique perspective, one that starts him on a path of acceptance. “When Fate and Justice Meet” is a story of how one woman changes the course of hundreds of lives and how these events have an impact almost one hundred years later.
When Their Hearts Answered
Interracial Love Tested: Ex-Klansman Athlete and Black Educator Navigate Romance Amidst Unveiled Secrets and Unfulfilled Promises in University.
In When Their Hearts Answered, we delve into the lives of two unlikely lovers, Billy Joe Farmer and Edna Lee McCluskey. Billy Joe, a young man with a past marred by his association with the Klan, is now an aspiring professional athlete. Edna Lee, a stunning and intelligent Black teacher, is a beacon of strength and resilience. Having met months earlier, they reconnect at a university, a setting that becomes a crucible for their budding romance.
Billy Joe and Edna Lee’s relationship is not a simple love story. It’s a journey of self-discovery, acceptance, and the courage to defy societal norms. Billy Joe grapples with his past, his mother’s expectations, and the fear of revealing his love for Edna Lee. On the other hand, Edna Lee, despite her affection for Billy Joe, is bound by a promise she made years ago. This promise, a secret she carries, threatens to shatter the fragile bond they’ve built.
More Stories Are Coming Soon!
The story of Quakerville isn’t finished yet. Each book in the series pulls back another layer of love, loyalty, and the long shadow of Southern history. The next installment is already on the way, and it will carry these characters into new trials and new triumphs.
If you’d like updates, behind-the-scenes notes, and release news, stay connected. More heart, more suspense, and more history are coming soon.
