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Dolen Perkins-Valdez wants to change readers’ perspective on the Civil War. Her best-selling debut novel, Wench, explored the lives of slave women — not on Southern plantations, but in a resort for slaveowners’ mistresses in Ohio. Her new book, Balm, is set in the post-war period, and it’s also in an unexpected place: Chicago.

Listen to or read the rest of the story here:  http://www.npr.org/2015/06/06/411813657/balm-looks-at-civil-war-after-the-battles-outside-the-south