To purchase Ring Out Wild Bells
on Amazon from Carroll Thomas Bookseller click here.

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From ALA Booklist:

"...a good choice for classes studying the Civil War."




From Publisher's Weekly:

"The novel offers a little-known perspective on women's roles in the Civil War and will please historical fiction fans"


From VOYA:

"Fans of Matty and Neely will want to continue with this novel."



  "I loved the mystery. I didn't want to stop reading when I got to the end of the book." Sarah Wilcox, 6th grade student, Simsbury, Connecticut


Ring Out Wild Bells was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Young Adult Mystery of 2001.


In Ring Out Wild Bells, the sequel to Matty's War, we follow Matty's cousin Neely to Mount Holyoke Seminary and Matty to medical school in Boston. There, the last words of a dying woman propel the cousins into an investigation of the woman's mysterious death.

An Excerpt from Ring Out Wild Bells:

   I looked around for a police officer but could not see one. Tom and Paul were still far away. I knew I had to act, and couldn't wait another second. Jumping down from the capstan, I pushed my way along the row of cabs and the scurried along towards the first cab, hoping to get there ahead of him. He looked over at me and began to run. He reached the cab ahead of me, and jumping in, shouted orders to the driver. Luckily the driver was slow to respond and by the time he got the horses moving, I was in front of him.
   "Whoa," I shouted. "That man is a murderer!"
   The cab driver was surprised but didn't pull back on the horses, and I had to jump to one side to avoid being run over. I grabbed the reins and held on for dear life.

               

From the Author:

The title comes from a poem we like, and since the first and last chapters begin with the sound of church bells ringing, we thought it was appropriate. But with the Civil War over, we wondered how to bring that same sense of excitement and drama to the story, and a murder mystery intrigued us. In a world without fingerprints or modern forensics, our young protagonists take on and solve a most baffling case.