An Old Familiar Place

Going to Sign! The month of September will be fast and fun with fifteen signings scheduled between the 6th and 28th of the month, and I am ready to get on the road. We've planned some great events beginning with my home base of New Albany. This is where I stay when I'm not county hopping. Come with me and enjoy the company of fine people. Here's my schedule . Please mark your calendar for the one closest to your house. I'll be looking for you. We'll even "leave the light on for you"! Sa turday, September 6, 2014 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. In Bloom Florist and Gifts With John Hickey In Historic Downtown New Albany 139 West Bankhead New Albany, MS 38652 Followed by Family Signing and Gathering Hillcrest Baptist Church Fellowship Hall 2:30 p.m. —Catered late lunch (reserve with Dewey Davidson 662-538-4223) Thursday, September 11, 2014 6:00 p.m. Dinner and Signing Sons of Confederate Veterans Harrisburg Camp With Harry Vinson ...

is only half easy— The easy part is what you know about your own personal characters. What was going on around them at the time is quite another story. Rachel, After the Darkness covers a relatively condensed timeframe, beginning in late fall of 1872 and ending in late September 1873. Research that covers a little less than a year may not seem significant, but the year 1873 was not one of those insignificant years. In fact, the drama was amazingly intense, and I wanted to cover as much as I possibly could. That year combined with Rachel's memories covering the greater part of the first decade after the War, Reconstruction, and the continuing aftermath that droned on and on makes for an incredible story. If we are smart, we will never exhaust the War years and beyond from a literary perspective. Those years were rich with important information. I'm sorry to say, I didn't know a lot about the North before I started writing historical fiction. Learni...

First Signings are Always Fun! The anticipation of Saturday, July 19, 2014, hoping all my friends and family will be there. The unknown. And somehow everything just fell into place and I found myself enjoying this Old Familiar Place like never before. All my first signings are here at this grand old "Café Eclectic" on a corner where North meets South. Thanks, Friends, for being there for me. You bought my books, shared good times, coffee and pastry. I loved that we met new friends from as far away as Miami! And the constants were there, of course, friends from Toronto and New York and Pittsburgh, and Indiana and Maine and Florida and on and on! I do feel outnumbered at times! Follow the pictures of the Trinity Signing along the side. And Look for my September Schedule  Soon!

Rachel, After the Darkness went live just two weeks ago on June 16, 2014, and I now have readers in nine states. I get hits on my blog from all over the world. If you are out there, and you're reading my books, please let me know at this blog. I would love to hear from you. ___________________________________________________________ I will launch RACHEL with the first signing at Panera Bread in Trinity, Florida, on Saturday, July 19, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I look forward to seeing all my local friends for coffee and for celebrating the publication of my fourth Novel of the Old South . If you are close by on that morning, please come see us. Colonel Andrew Domarasky will be signing with me, so you will meet him and some other folks you may not know. I always look forward to my first signing. Joint Venture and General Manager Tim Curlee generously allows me to have it at Trinity Panera. He said, "You write it here. You should always have your first...

Rachel, After the Darkness went live at the publisher today! And right now, I'm in Seventh Heaven! Soon I will post the schedule for signings, hoping that all of you, my friends, will join me at one or two of these events. I can't thank you enough for standing by me and for supporting my books. I have some wonderful opportunities coming my way. Mine is to be found faithful with my purpose for writing, always to honor the Lord with content and in the signing venues. This is my opportunity to give something in return for what my ancestors did for me in the preservation of the Old South, even to giving their lives for a Cause that seemed, at the time, lost, indeed. From here the flame will never die. Our Mississippians fought till the end to protect and preserve a way of life. I can do no less, if only on paper. Maintaining principles tinctured  by the blood of Revolutionary patriots, illustrated by brilliant military genius, borne forward by the in...

Rachel, After the Darkness— The exhausting job of proofing the book block and cover copy is over, and soon I will see the final proofs before we call this book published! I can hardly wait. This is not easy. The worst part is handing it back to the publisher for the final dip. It has my blood, sweat and tears all over it. There is at least one error in every book that has ever been published, but I crave a perfect book. To clear my personal hang-ups, I went to the shelves at Barnes and Noble and laid my hand on Gone With The Wind . I own a copy of this timeless tome, but I wanted to do it this way, so I opened it, and you know the intimidation of a book designed with two columns on a page, like The Complete and Unabridged Works of  Flavius Josephus ! Yes, I opened it to the middle part of the book and, low and behold, a mistake on that very page. I looked no further. I was convinced. So if you go searching my book for a mistake, please don't tell me. ...

I'm at the finish line with Rachel, After the Darkness . It is all with the publisher, and I am now at their mercy for a beautiful book block and cover. I can hardly wait. It's always fun to watch this part of the process unfold and to see the splendid handiwork of the design team. I do love my publisher! Here's a little excerpt from the story. I hope it will make you thirst for more! By Far the Greatest Rachel glanced toward the door where she had left the dress on the wood hanger her mother had packed in the side of the big box. She knew I would have no way of hanging it, thought Rachel. Madeleine Beauregard does think of everything. Rachel touched it again, lost in the feel of luxurious fabric, the fragrance of store-bought finery. Her head was spinning from the sudden eruption of a thousand possibilities. In an anxious moment, she removed the skirt from the hanger and slipped it to her slender waist, then the jacket, fastening the long row of covered butt...

I live the contrast.  At times it takes me far above the earth to another world. My husband tells me I go there when I'm writing— to that other planet, sometimes making it impossible to communicate properly to earth. But he protects those times for me, insisting that I go—go to that place where no one follows. It is in those times that I am able to do what I do. The Contrast . I had no idea the dramatic separateness, the acute closeness, if that makes sense. It will when you read my story. Like when Solomon of old visited Queen Esther and learned "the half has never been told" —as I research what took place on the continent of North America in the strangest of times, I have found that same statement to be true on a different level. "The half has not been told." At least not unless you go searching for it. Oh, it's out there, mostly in the archives of the northern newspapers. God love those editors and journalists and proprietors who dar...