The year is 1861. The place, New Orleans. For Lydia Lazarus, a privileged White girl nearly 15 years old, life is carefree and perfect with no sign things might ever change. But President Lincoln has just delivered his first inaugural address, rumblings over the future of slavery soon spark an attack on Fort Sumter, and the Civil War is begun. Her mother and father being kind to their one family of slaves, namely Priscilla and William Brown and their daughter Savannah, and seeing nothing wrong with the practice, Lydia is inconsolable when she overhears a conversation in which the Browns express the hope the South will lose the war and they will soon be free. Considering Savannah her closest and dearest friend, a sister, Lydia is at first devastated by what she feels is an unforgivable betrayal of their relationship; however, with the urging of her older brother, Joshua–who, unbeknownst to Lydia at the time, has already turned against slavery–and her slaves, she is taken on an eye-opening, tear-filled journey into the unspeakably cruel underbelly of her once perfect, carefree world. She will be forever changed by it. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Lynn Solte is a writer now living in Hollywood, Florida. Her working life began in the advertising industry, where she discovered a love for and absorbed the elements of good writing and graphic design; she went on to study journalism at FIT/SUNY and graduate from the Institute of Children's Literature. Realizing along the way she did not feel fulfilled in a corporate setting and that helping to improve the everyday lives of those in need was her greatest motivation, she moved into the not-for-profit sector, where she spent the majority of her career writing/designing fund raising brochures/promotional material and newsletters for major non-profits, such as the University of Miami School of Medicine Department of Orthopedics, Easter Seals, ArtCenter South Florida, and the Concert Association of Florida. From 2011 until 2023, she ran Rising Star Résumés, her own résumé writing business. Now in her eighth decade and semi-retired, she still loves to write. In the Blink of an Eye being her first, Lydia's Story is her second Young Adult historical novel.
