Charles B. Fancher Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

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Charles B. Fancher
Charles B. Fancher released his debut novel “Red Clay” in 2025 and it’s the latest turn in a wide-ranging career which spans public relations, journalism, and academia.

As a journalist, he’s worked for The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he was an editor on the Foreign and News desks, and, as a reporter, he wrote features and he covered higher education. Charles also worked for the Detroit Free Press, where he held a variety of positions, which include Editor of Detroit Free Press Magazine, the paper’s Sunday magazine.

His time at the Free Press, also included stints as the Deputy Business Editor, as a member of the Editorial Board, and as the Assistant to the Executive Editor. He started his journalism career as a broadcast reporter in Nashville, Tennessee for the local NBC-TV affiliate WSM-TV (now WSMV-TV).

Charles moved back and forth between public relations and journalism over his career. While he was a corporate communications executive, he served as Vice President, Communications for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, DC and as Vice President/Communications and Public Affairs for Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc., which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Knight Rider, Inc., which was then the publisher of Philadelphia Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. He also directed the philanthropic activities of the company.

His public relations work also included operating a consultancy, Fancher Associates, which is Annapolis, Maryland based and provided editing, writing, research, and communications planning services to corporate and non-profit clients. His early public relations work included working as a publicist for the ABC Television Network in New York, which was assigned to programs produced by ABC Sports, ABC Entertainment, and ABC News. He was also Publicity Manager for the Opryland complex in Nashville.

In academia, he was a Lecturer in the School of Communications at Howard University in Washington, DC, where he served as Coordinator of the Strategic Communications sequence in the Department of Strategic, Legal, and Management Communication and as the interim Assistant Chair of the Department of Journalism. He’s also been a member of the adjunct faculty of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Charles is a graduate of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Journalists at the University of Michigan. He lives with his wife, Diane Brozek Fancher (a former journalist) in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.

“Red Clay” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2025. A multi-generational saga which chronicles the interwoven lives of one enslaved Black family and their white owners while the Civil War is coming to an end and Reconstruction begins.

In 1943, when this frail old white woman arrives in Red Clay, Alabama, at a Black former slave’s home, on the morning of his funeral, his family barely knows what to expect when she utters the words “a lifetime ago, my family owned yours”. Adelaide Parker has got a story to tell, one of redemption, ambition, violence, and betrayal, which shaped both the fate of her family and that of the late Felix H. Parker.

However there are gaps in her knowledge and she has come to Red Clay looking to get answers from a family with whom she shares a history and a name which neither knows fully. In this epic saga which takes us from Red Clay to Paris, to the Cote d’Azur and New Orleans, human frailties get pushed to their limits while secrets get exposed and the line between good and evil gets ever more difficult to discern. This is the type of story which deftly lays bare the ugliness of slavery, the optimism of Reconstruction, the uncertainty of the Civil War’s final months, and the agony and frustration of Jim Crow.

With a memorable cast of characters and a vivid sense of place, Charles draws on his own family history in order to weave such a riveting story of triumph over adversity, which is set against a backdrop of societal change and racial animus which reverberates in contemporary America. Through seasons of unspeakable pain and joy, Charles delivers rich moments while allies are turned into enemies, and enemies (much to their great surprise) find some new respect for one another.

Charles delivers a well written and compelling novel that never feels like it even is a debut novel. The characters were each vividly developed and realistic. Claude and his interactions with Felix and his dad were incredibly interesting. The granddaughter of a man born into slavery learns his story from a descendant of his enslavers in an immersive debut. Charles imbues the narrative with this rich humanity. There’s quite a lot for historical fiction fans to admire and sink their teeth into.

Charles sweeps you away with his debut, which is an ambitious and mesmerizing read about the way that family secrets often get braided into America’s shameful history of slavery, and the resilience and hope that’s needed to survive its aftermath. This is both a riveting family story and a heartbreaking tour of American history, it overflows with hope, pain, and grace. It’s the rare sort of novel which shows us who we truly are by reminding us about where we have been.

The family history in this novel is both deeply personal yet universal in its appeal for truth, justice, and inviolable dignity which is the birthright of each and every human being. Charles has combined family history with historical fiction to bring us a story which is both fascinating and amazing.

This is an entertaining and moving saga with some memorable characters and painful truths, and it rises up from America’s deepest shadows to remind us about how entangled all of us still are with our past. Here is an impressive debut book that is a splendid addition to this relatively new genre of historical fiction which focuses on the lives of black women and men, and their interactions with their white oppressors, during the Civil War and Reconstruction. This is a vividly written novel that features some well researched historical details, full realized characters and some surprising plot twists.