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By Her Own Hand: War and Passion in a Woman’s Wounded Heart
Jack Deveny’s By Her Own Hand is a war novel, romance, and psychological thriller built around two soldiers who come home carrying much more than memories of Afghanistan. Madeline Crowne and Eliot Lange are both fugitives in their own ways, haunted by disastrous moments in combat that left innocent people dead and their own lives shattered. Madeline’s guilt is especially central to the story. She enters the military partly to escape the pain of leaving her abused younger brother behind, only to accidentally kill a pregnant Afghan woman during a chaotic firefight. Eliot carries a parallel burden after trying to protect his best friend, Will, during a severe PTSD episode and accidentally causing the death of an Afghan civilian. Those opening events give the novel its emotional foundation and explain why both characters see themselves as guilty even when the circumstances are far more complicated.
What makes the novel so interesting is how quickly it moves from the battlefield into a much more personal story. Madeline and Eliot find comfort in each other, and their relationship becomes the safest place either of them has known. Their romance is tender, physical, and sometimes intensely sentimental, but that fits these characters because affection isn’t just affection to them. Holding hands, sleeping beside someone, or being touched without fear becomes evidence that life can still contain something good. Deveny frequently shifts perspective between Madeline and Eliot, letting readers experience how differently they carry similar kinds of guilt. At the same time, the story keeps widening. Madeline’s search for her addicted brother, Eliot’s concern for Will, and the dangerous Mira all pull the couple back toward the violence they’re trying to escape. Mira is especially important because her history with Madeline connects love, jealousy, exploitation, and revenge, giving the novel much of its thriller energy.
In that sense, By Her Own Hand reminded me somewhat of Kristin Hannah’s The Women. Both stories are deeply interested in what happens after combat, especially when a soldier returns carrying guilt and trauma that ordinary life can’t easily absorb. Deveny takes a more action-driven and romantic approach, mixing PTSD, crime, pursuit, international travel, and courtroom drama into the same story. His characters tend to experience everything at full emotional volume, so the book has the feel of a sweeping melodrama as much as a military novel. That intensity works best when Madeline and Eliot’s private pain collides with the question of how other people judge what happened in war. By the final sections, the chase has evolved into a legal reckoning, and the same events that have tortured the characters internally have to be retold as evidence, testimony, and competing versions of the truth. Madeline’s trial, for example, forces witnesses to confront how little certainty can exist in the smoke and confusion of combat.
What I liked most was the book’s belief that healing can become a responsibility. Madeline and Eliot don’t just want to survive what happened to them. By the end, they begin imagining lives built around helping people who have suffered in ways they understand personally. Eliot wants to work with veterans who have PTSD in honor of Will, while Madeline considers helping wrongly accused veterans or women affected by sex trafficking. That ending gives the title another dimension. The characters have spent much of the novel feeling as though their own hands caused destruction, but those same hands can eventually comfort, defend, and rebuild. It’s a very earnest novel, and its mix of war, romance, trauma, crime, and redemption gives it an unusually broad emotional range. For readers who like character-driven stories where love is tangled up with guilt, danger, and the difficult work of living after violence, By Her Own Hand has plenty to hold onto.
Pages: 312 | ASIN : B0FRP4NQY7
My Salvation – Literature & History
By Her Own Hand centers around two decorated soldiers haunted by civilian deaths, abandonment, and the fear that a single terrible moment has defined them forever. Where did the idea behind this novel come from?
To begin with, my own fractured upbringing where substance abuse and violence prevailed. Born as an empath, this environment was particularly painful to one of my nature. But irony emerges in strange places. My older brother tutored me at an early age to love literature and history, both ancient and contemporary. That was my salvation.
The novel contains elements of war fiction, psychological drama, romance, and thriller. What drew you to blending these genres?
In terms of war fiction, my extensive reading of conflicts in the Middle East. On a more personal level, the friends who died in the Viet Nam war and those who came back with the horrible affliction of PTSD. As far as psychological drama, the setting of the novel and the characters involved dictated high drama.
In reference to romance, most of my emotional responses would be classified as feminine. I relate to women’s feelings more than men’s. Thus, I write more directly to them. Moving on to thriller, once again, given the setting of high conflict and the personal inner conflicts of my characters, thriller was a necessary component.
Madeline’s relationship with Eliot and Mira reveal different aspects of her personality. What did each relationship teach readers about her?
Even as horrible as her family life was, she did not become hardened. She still has the will and the strength of character to open herself to vulnerability. In Eliot’s case, it led to an enduring love. In Mira’s case, Madeline’s nature was manipulated into lies and deceit. Yet, in the end, Madeline does not seek revenge. She knows that would only tarnish the real love she has found.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I do have a new novel in mind, but you know how superstitious novelists can be when it comes to divulging details too soon. Fortunately, I’m married to a loving and levelheaded wife who keeps her crazy writer in check!
I do promise you’ll be among the first to know when my next book comes out.
Author Links: GoodReads | Facebook | Amazon
She escaped one war—only to be hunted in another.
When Madeline Crowne flees an abusive home by joining the army, she rises from survivor to hero during her deployment in Afghanistan. But everything shatters when she’s falsely accused of a war crime and becomes the target of a global manhunt.
Saved by Mira, a survivor of Lebanon’s civil wars, Madeline finds comfort in their shared scars—until Mira’s dangerous double life as an illegal arms dealer turns obsession into betrayal.
Back in the U.S., Madeline crosses paths with Eliot Lange, another soldier on the run after being accused of desertion. Their chemistry is instant, their trust fragile. Together, they try to rebuild a future.
But the FBI is closing in.
And Mira wants revenge.
By Her Own Hand: War and Passion in a Woman’s Wounded Heart
By Her Own Hand is a sweeping blend of war novel, psychological drama, romance, and fugitive thriller. Jack Deveny centers the story on Madeline Crowne and Eliot Lange, two decorated soldiers carrying the moral injuries of Afghanistan into an uncertain life back home. Both are haunted by civilian deaths, abandonment, and the fear that a single terrible moment has defined them forever. Their growing love gives the novel its emotional center, while accusations of war crimes, an international arms trafficker, and a relentless pursuit keep the story moving. The book’s subtitle, “War and passion in a woman’s wounded heart,” captures its central tension beautifully.
Madeline is the novel’s driving force. She’s fierce, vulnerable, sexually candid, and burdened by guilt that reaches back to her childhood and her brother John’s suffering. Her relationships with Eliot and Mira reveal different sides of her hunger for safety, loyalty, and forgiveness. Eliot, meanwhile, brings a gentler energy to the story. His devotion to his traumatized friend Will and his tenderness toward Madeline give the romance genuine warmth. Their intimacy is presented as more than desire. It becomes a private language through which two damaged people recognize each other and begin imagining a future.
Deveny writes with emotional directness and a strong visual instinct. Combat scenes arrive in flashes of blood, smoke, confusion, and irreversible choices, while quieter moments linger over hands, scars, clothing, rooms, and treasured objects. The shifting viewpoints bring readers close to the characters’ thoughts, and the story moves confidently from Afghanistan to Sacramento, Libya, Beirut, and military courtrooms. At times, the intensity is almost unbroken, but that sustained pressure suits characters who can’t simply step away from their memories. The novel is deeply interested in moral injury, especially the painful distance between what a person intended and what their actions caused.
What stays with you is the book’s belief that remorse can become a source of purpose. Madeline and Eliot don’t erase their wounds. They learn to carry them toward service, compassion, and a life devoted to people suffering as they have suffered. By the closing pages, justice matters, but mercy matters more, and love becomes an active choice. By Her Own Hand is a fierce and intimate story of two wounded soldiers who discover that love can’t undo the past, but it can teach the heart what to do with it.
Pages: 351 | ASIN : B0H2HGZJPY
