Local author Nick West, whose most recent novel is about life just prior to the Civil War, will speak at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 22 for the Alachua Historical Society.

The speech will be given at the Alachua Lions Club, across from Alachua City Hall.

The speech is free and open to the public.

West's novel is called "The Great Southern Circus" and focuses on the early summer of 1859, when an Alabama farm boy named James Johnston had no idea that his life was about to change forever.

The clouds of civil war were gathering when he met Miranda "Randi" Madderra, a beautiful young bareback rider with a small traveling circus.

West was born and grew up near Gainesville. A veteran of the United States Navy and longtime owner of a family landscape business, he now lives on his family's farm near Archer with his wife Kay.

When he was a small boy, his grandmother, Verna Simmons Goode, would regale him with stories of her great grandmother, Miranda Madderra, and her adventures with the Great Southern Circus.

These stories handed down through family history were simply too good not to pass on through written word, he said.