News from Janis Robinson Daly, April 2026—FEATURED REVIEW.
Susannah Willey’s NOSTALGIA opens with a single, devastating truth: the outward violence of war is only half the story. It’s the other half, however, that Willey explores, which gives the story its inner depth. Through her main character, Dr. Jim Banyon, we enter the battlefields, surgical areas, hospitals, and prisons of the U.S. Civil War, where Banyon witnesses the slow, unseen unraveling of a man’s mind. Nostalgia takes its title from a nineteenth-century clinical vocabulary that physicians used to describe a constellation of symptoms — severe homesickness, despair, chronic anxiety and functional breakdown. Modern readers will recognize the condition as what we now call PTSD. Willey’s research into period medical writings, surgeons’ letters, and asylum case notes (woven into the narrative rather than shoehorned into exposition) underscores how limited contemporary diagnoses were and how often psychological injury was dismissed as moral failing.
That historical frame deepens the tragedy. Dr. Banyon treats not only the wounds of flesh but also battles the ignorance of an institution that cannot imagine invisible wounds as legitimate. The “big bugs” want every able-bodied man on the battlefield. If outwardly they look fine, then throw them back into the situations that are driving their inner demons. Banyon struggles with these commands as defined with Willey’s precise and human prose of conscience and an oath to care and treat the injured, whether their scars are visible or not.
Lovers of literary historical fiction, readers interested in medical history, and anyone who appreciates moral complexity in a character-driven story will enjoy Nostalgia as both a finely observed period piece and a timely meditation on how societies assess all the costs of war.
Please Note: Throughout the month of April, the author will donate all proceeds to a local PTSD Vet Center in upstate New York. Consider helping by purchasing a copy today.
Janis
Historical Fiction Author
The Unlocked Path
The Path Beneath Her Feet
Under Two Flags
I have read all three of Janis’ novels and highly recommend them. Check them out on her website at www.janisrdaly.com
Susannah Willey Writes 