On an overheated, politically charged autumn afternoon in 2017, as an autocrat's punitive federal budget and illegal travel ban stand poised to take effect, a journalist researching a railroad piece meets a dead ringer for her lifelong hero in Washington D.C.
Now, he needs a favor - an escort to a certain California bridge to complete an unknown mission - and she must decide whether to serve as his guide...regardless of the consequences.
“Some books ask you to suspend disbelief. Better Angel asks you to suspend certainty. One of the most original speculative novels I’ve encountered in years.” ~ Melissa Suggit, Independent Book Review
"Lively story of a disillusioned American reporter who encounters the impossible: a mind-reading Abraham Lincoln himself, just when the nation needs him the most. Better Angel earns its originality by rooting the supernatural in contemporary reality...Green capably melds past with present and fantasy with real-life... a wealth of political editorializing, but the narrator's obvious passion for her country is endearing." — The BookLife Prize
"An imaginative blend of travel fiction, political reflection, and ghost story that places Abraham Lincoln back into the American conversation... a moving window into America: its divisions, contradictions, arguments, memories, and hopes...For readers who enjoy historical figures set in modern settings, reflective American travel stories, or novels that use a journey to examine the national character, Better Angel offers an original and thoughtful ride."
~ a.d.elliott RiteofFancy
★★★★★
"An engaging tale that defies easy categorization, with tautly rendered characters and humor that never slackens...the train becomes a democratic microcosm of today's America."
~ Ruffina Oserio, Readers' Favorite
★★★★★
"Brilliant speculative fiction... one of the funniest voices I have read in ages. The best part is the history. Green knows Lincoln thoroughly enough to let him argue with the record... readers who enjoy speculative fiction that makes history talk back will adore this."
~ Jamie Michele, Reader's Favorite
★★★★★
“Whimsical look at what might occur if Abraham Lincoln were to reappear today and how he would view the state of America in the twenty-first century… Pays tribute to a great president, but also examines the depths of partisanship and division that seem endemic in American society and especially its politics…”
~ Grant Leishman, Readers’ Favorite
Caryn Green, citizen journalist is a legacy media veteran, indie publisher and independent researcher based in 21st-century Chicago. After decades on the business side of publishing she crossed over to content, reporting on topics ranging from travel, lifestyle, and the arts to history, religion and the environment for various defunct and still-extant periodicals and websites. Better Angel is her first foray into (totally fact-based) fiction.
Her travel memoir 'Overland:Remembering Southeast Asia' won the National Indie Excellence Award for New Adult Non-Fiction in 2018, and a non fiction short story 'Commitment' was anthologized in the Foreword prize winning Meaningful Conflicts: The Art of Friction (Windy City Publishers, 2023). Green currently serves as the Communications Director of the Off Campus Writers Workshop.