Tag: farm

Little Tea

Published on by macjam4728 Comments

By Claire Fullerton

Endorsements for Little Tea

Claire Fullerton skillfully draws us into a lost world of Southern traditions and norms where past tragedies cast long, dark shadows on present-day lives, and no one ever truly escapes.

Cassandra King, author of The Same Sweet Girls* 

“Claire Fullerton once again delivers an emotional, lyrical tale and proves she’s a writer to watch.”

–Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of Perennials

Claire Fullerton’s unique, lovely story brings the reader a triple bonus — the sense of home, history, and compassion delivered in abundance. Her characters sizzle with personality.  This is the Old South butting heads with Today. Fullerton’s book Little Tea shows us there is hope for the future.

Val MacEwan: Editor of The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

pre-release, here are Little Tea’s Awards

The Pulpwood Queens (780 book club chapters) August book selection

Finalist in the Faulkner Society’s William Wisdom International book competition

Finalist in the Chanticleer Review’s Somerset Awards

 

Book Blurb

One phone call from Renny to come home and “see about” the capricious Ava and Celia Wakefield decides to overlook her distressful past in the name of friendship. For three reflective days at Renny’s lake house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, the three childhood friends reunite and examine life, love, marriage, and the ties that bind, even though Celia’s personal story has yet to be healed. When the past arrives at the lake house door in the form of her old boyfriend, Celia revisits the life she’d tried to outrun. As her idyllic coming of age alongside her best friend, Little Tea, on her family’s ancestral grounds in bucolic Como, Mississippi unfolds, Celia realizes there is no better place to accept her own story than in this circle of friends who have remained beside her throughout the years. Theirs is a friendship that can talk any life sorrow into a comic tragedy, and now that the racial divide in the Deep South has evolved, Celia wonders if friendship can triumph over history.

 

My Review

Little Tea is a story of many layers.  The author deftly alternates this story of the South in the 1980s with the present day. While racism was outlawed, the South still bristled with hatred from a few of the privileged.

Ava, Celia, and Renny had been friends since they were thirteen years old. When Ava decides she needs to change her life and contemplates leaving her husband of 23 years, the three friends meet at Renny’s lake house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, not far from Memphis. Unbeknownst to Celia and Renny, Ava arranges to meet her high school boyfriend, Mark, at the lake house. Celia’s ex-boyfriend, Tate, is in Memphis at the same time and wants to see Celia. This stirs up a lot of memories of Tate, her brother Hayward, and her best friend Little Tea, Celia has worked hard to bury. Renny is the voice of calm and reason and having divorced her husband, has no need for another man in her life.  Will all three be able to come to terms with the issues they’ve tried to bury?

This is a story of family, friendships, love, hate, and race relations still evident in the 1980s.  It is about children growing to adulthood but never really leaving all the entanglements of their youth behind. The author keeps you guessing about some of the characters, revealing only what you need to know until she decides you need to know more.

Claire Fullerton crafts a beautiful story that is both pleasurable and heartrending at times.  Her characters are so well fleshed out, you feel you know each one personally.  She seamlessly moves from one period to the other and back throughout the book allowing us to know the South through Ava, Renny and Celia’s eyes.  For those of us who are Northerners, it gives us insight into how far-reaching the fingers of hate can go.

I loved Little Tea. It is one of those books you can’t put down and then never seems to leave you. If you enjoy

I was given an ARC copy of Little Tea by the author in exchange for my honest review.

 

About the Author

Claire Fullerton hails from Memphis, TN. and now lives in Malibu, CA. with her husband and 3 German shepherds. She is the author of Mourning Dove, a coming of age, Southern family saga set in 1970’s Memphis. Mourning Dove is a five-time award winner, including the Literary Classics Words on Wings for Book of the Year, and the Ippy Award silver medal in regional fiction (Southeast). Claire is also the author of Dancing to an Irish Reel, A Portal in Time, and a contributor to A Southern Season with her Novella, Through an Autumn Window. Little Tea is Claire’s 4th novel. She is represented by Julie Gwinn of the Seymour Literary Agency. She is a featured author with Novel Network and a two-time featured author of The Pulpwood Queens.

Claire Fullerton is the author of four novels and one novella. Her southern family saga set in 1970’s Memphis, Mourning Dove (Firefly Southern Fiction) was a five-time book award winner and a semi-finalist in the Faulkner Society’s 2017 William Wisdom international competition.

Author Links

Author Website

Author Page – Goodreads

Little Tea will be available for purchase on May 1, 2020

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Wild Water

Published on by macjam4719 Comments

By Jan Ruth

Wild WaterBook Blurb

Will life and family conspire to keep these lovers apart again?

Wild Water is the story of forty-something estate agent, Jack, who is stressed out – not only by work, bills, and the approach of Christmas, but by the feeling that he and his wife, Patsy, are growing apart.

His misgivings prove to be true when he discovers Patsy is having an affair, and is pregnant. As his marriage begins to crumble around him, he becomes reacquainted with his childhood sweetheart, Anna, whom he left for Patsy twenty-five years before.

His feelings towards Anna reawaken, but will life and family conflicts conspire to keep them apart again?

 

My Review

Just about everything his life touches – work, his home life, his wife Patsy’s infidelity – leaves Jack Redman stressed.  When he confronts Patsy, she says she wants a divorce and runs off, with their youngest child in tow, to live with her French lover Phillipe.  While dealing with this major upheaval, Jack’s father sends him to talk to Anna Williams, a former girlfriend from long ago, about selling her farm. Thus, we have basis of the love triangle – Jack, Patsy, and Anna.  Phillipe is, for most of the story, in the background and his character doesn’t really come into play until the later part of the book.

The characters are so well drawn; they came to life for me.  Jack is somewhat of a tragic character that evokes the reader’s sympathy.  Patsy is the easy to dislike. She fits the stereotypical idea of a wife who runs off with her lover, forsaking many happy years of marriage and family life. Without regard for her young daughter Lottie’s feelings or the feelings Jack and of the other members of her family, she uses the child as a pawn in the divorce.  Anna is easy to like, she is a friend, a single mother, a caretaker of her farm, and finds that her long buried feelings for Jack are still burning strong.

Wild Water takes place, in part, in rural Wales, which the author describes in such vivid detail you can visualize the mountains, the farm, the beauty of the area as you read.  The plot has a many elements seamlessly woven through it to keep you turning the pages.  Well written so that fiction could be one with reality, Wild Water is the kind of book you never want to put down. It is the first of Jan Ruth’s books that I’ve read, and it won’t be the last.

 

To Read a Sample Chapter: Mybook.to/wildwater

Available as Kindle or Print Book

Publisher: ACCENT PRESS

Publication Date:  July 2015

90,000 words (324 pages print)

Genre: Contemporary Family Saga

 

About the Author

Jan Ruth lives in Snowdonia, North Wales, UK.Jan Ruth - B & W - Lake

This ancient, romantic landscape is a perfect setting for Jan’s fiction, or simply day-dreaming in the heather. Jan writes contemporary stories about people, with a good smattering of humour, drama, dogs and horses.

ABOUT JAN RUTH

Jan was born in Cheshire and moved to North Wales in 1998, although she has always maintained a strong connection with the area from a much earlier age. Her feel for the Welsh landscape is evident in all of her work.

The real story began at school, with prizes for short stories and poetry. She failed all things mathematical and scientific, and to this day struggles to make sense of anything numerical.

Her first novel – written in 1986 – attracted the attention of an agent who was trying to set up her own company, Love Stories Ltd. It was a project aiming to champion those books of substance which contained a romantic element but were perhaps directed towards the more mature reader and consistently fell through the net in traditional publishing. Sadly, the project failed to get the right financial backing.

Many years later Jan’s second novel, Wild Water, was taken on by Jane Judd, literary agent. Judd was a huge inspiration, but the book failed to find the right niche with a publisher. It didn’t fall into a specific category and, narrated mostly from the male viewpoint, it was considered out of genre for most publishers and too much of a risk.

Amazon changed the face of the industry with the advent of self-publishing; opening up the market for readers to decide the fate of those previously spurned novels. Jan went on to successfully publish several works of fiction and short story collections. Jan is now pleased to announce that throughout 2015, she will be re-published with Accent Press.

ABOUT JAN’S BOOKS

Fiction which does not fall neatly into a pigeon hole has always been the most difficult to define. In the old days such books wouldn’t be allowed shelf space if they didn’t slot immediately into a commercial list. Today’s forward-thinking publishers – Accent Press being one of them – are far more savvy.

As an author I have been described as a combination of literary-contemporary-romantic-comedy-rural-realism-family-saga; oh, and with an occasional criminal twist and a lot of the time, written from the male viewpoint.

No question my books are Contemporary and Rural. Family and Realism; these two must surely go hand-in-hand, yes? So, although you’ll discover plenty of escapism, I hope you’ll also be able to relate to my characters as they stumble through a minefield of relationships, family, working, pets, love …

I hesitate to use the word romance. It’s a misunderstood and mistreated word in the world of fiction and despite the huge part it plays in the market, attracts an element of disdain. If romance says young, fluffy and something to avoid, maybe my novels will change your mind since many of my central characters are in their forties and fifties. Grown-up love is rather different, and this is where I try to bring that sense of realism into play without compromising the escapism.

Jan Ruth. 2015.

Discover More About Jan Ruth

Jan writes a variety of posts – funny, serious, informative – about Snowdonia and it’s landscapes. Horses and history, her inspiration to write fiction set in Wales and her publishing journey so far.

BLOG

Connect with Jan

FACEBOOK

TWITTER

Find Her Books

WEBSITE

AMAZON

THE FORGOTTEN PUMPKIN by Hugh G. Earnhart

Published on by macjam477 Comments

The Forgotten Pumpkin

THE FORGOTTEN PUMPKIN is a delightful autumn story for children about a sad pumpkin who was forgotten when Farmer Pond and his sons went to the fields to harvest all the pumpkins. Mr. Pond was in a hurry to gather the pumpkins and forgot to pick the large pumpkin that grew next to the woods far from the road.

The big beautiful pumpkin was so sad it began to cry.  During the night, the pumpkin’s cries became so loud that it woke the animals in the nearby forest. They came to the field and asked, “Pumpkin, why are you crying?” Pumpkin explained he had been forgotten and he was sure he would make a nice smiley jack-o’-lantern.

The animals looked at each other and came up with a plan to move the pumpkin near the road and carve it into a jack-o-lantern.

The story will hold a child’s attention with the surprising ways the pumpkin was transformed into a smiling jack-o-lantern with the darling characters beautifully illustrated by Susan Foland Ertel.

Do I recommend THE FORGOTTEN PUMPKIN?  Absolutely!

About the Author (from the last page of the book)

Hugh G. Earnhart is a retired history professor, a Korean War Veteran, and an Ohio State Master Gardener/Naturalist from Poland, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and flower consultant, Mary Kay. Being a flower judge also makes use of any free time.  He is a member of the Giant Pumpkin Grower’s Association of America, Canfield, Ohio chapter.

About the Illustrator (from the last page of the book)

Susan Foland Ertel’s whimsical artwork reflects her interest and love of animals. She is the author and illustrator of Belle, The Hound That Was Found.  Susan lives with her husband and pets in Wilmington, Ohio, where they enjoy their seven grandchildren.

I bought THE FORGOTTEN PUMPKIN at Books By The Banks, Cincinnati, OH, and promised the author an honest review before passing it on to my granddaughter.IMG_1112

THE FORGOTTEN PUMPKIN can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Booksamillion, Powell’s, Joseph Beth Booksellers, and many of your favorite indy bookstores.

The Rooms are Filled by Jessica Null Vealitzek

Published on by macjam475 Comments

The Rooms Are FilledMichael is the adopted son of John and Anne Nygaard and loves his life on his parents’ Minnesota farm. Then one day, the unthinkable happened. Michael’s dad collapses and dies and Michael’s mother has no choice but to sell the farm and move to Ackermann, Illinois where a job at her brother’s restaurant is waiting for her.

When they arrive in Ackermann, Michael has a difficult time making friends – he is the new kid, and the target of the 4th grade bully.  He is befriended by another loner.  Tina is in 6th grade and goes to the junior high. She lives across the street from Michael, and they become close friends, even though her moodiness bothers Michael. He doesn’t understand why she is nice to him one minute, and mean the next.

Michael’s teacher Julia Parnell has observed the bullying, but is powerless to do anything because there is no school policy against it. She befriends Michael, and they form a close friendship.  When Anne is asked to work Saturday’s, she asks Julia if Michael could stay with her during her shift.

Michael is drowning in his grief but can’t talk to his mother about it because he doesn’t want to make her sad. He misses his dad tremendously and dreams of talking with him.  His life was so much simpler with his dad, the farm, his chores, and his friends. Would his life here ever feel the same? Would he ever be accepted?  When each child had to tell something interesting about his life, Michael revealed that he was adopted. The other students treated him meanly, and he was even more ostracized.

No one knows Julia is running from her past, but when it catches up with her, will it affect her job, her relationship with Michael and her other students?  Julia has been best friends with Rose since they were young girls. A towns person knew someone from Julia’s past, and before long, rumors were spreading.  Her lesson plans had the word Homo written in bold black letters on them. It was hard enough to figure out who she was without others’ bigotries getting in the way.

There is a lot going on in this book, and a lot of prejudice and resentment.  Will each character be able to solve their personal conflicts?

I loved THE ROOMS ARE FILLED. It is a quick read, but a complex storyline. I fell in love with the characters of Michael and Julia and was rooting for them all the way. Jessica Null Vealitzek writes with enthusiasm and passion. She has woven the lives and problems of various characters into an intensely captivating tale. I highly recommend this book.

Learn more about Jessica:

Author Page Jessica Null Vealitzek

Blog True Stories

Twitter

Facebook author page

Goodreads

To buy her book on Amazon THE ROOMS ARE FILLED