I write southern historical fiction and local history. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog is about my journey as a writer and a reader.
In celebration of the unveiling of my newly-redesigned website, I’m announcing a giveaway! Who can pass up free stuff?
Today’s blog post will be short because I want you to spend some time exploring my website.
The home page of my redesigned website!
What’s free?
Just for visiting my website and clicking on the “Subscribe” button, I’ll send you a FREE E-Copy of one of my short stories: “Slip Sliding Away: A Southern Historical Short Story.” It’s set in the southern Appalachian Mountains in 1875. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
This is the cover of the short story if you prefer to purchase it on Amazon.
Please rate or review the short story
If you like the story, please consider going on Amazon.com and rating it or even leaving a brief review. That would be great and I would truly appreciate it!
History in Photographs
History in Photographs page on my redesigned website!
One particular page on my website that I want to draw your attention to is “History in Photographs.” On that page you’ll find pictures of various historical sites and items that are representative of the 1700-1900 era of American history I’m most drawn to and prompted to write about.
Since my last blog post
In addition to my newly-designed website going “live,” I finally received a refund for the damaged copies of Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 that I received in December. I emailed the company again and my request finally landed with the right person!
It was a great week!
Until my next blog post
Please visit https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com and subscribe to my newsletter! I anticipate sending out the first newsletter in March and follow a schedule of every other month.
I hope you have a good book (or short story!) to read.
Thank you for reading my blog and for visiting my website. Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter to get my free short story!
And as always, remember the suffering people in Ukraine, Turkey, and Syria.
As usual, I enjoyed reading a variety of books in October. By reading my blog post today, I hope you’ll discover a new book or new author to add to your TBR (To Be Read list.) There’s something here for almost everyone.
Under the Southern Sky, by Kristy Woodson Harvey
Under the Southern Sky, by Kristy Woodson Harvey
Right off the bat, this novel got into the hot button topic of frozen embryos. Parker’s wife, Greer, with whom he’d frozen those embryos has died of cancer.
Their marriage appeared to be a match made in heaven. Amelia, the proverbial girl next door during their childhoods, is a reporter researching frozen embryos for a story.
Will Amelia and Parker get together? Can Amelia overcome the idea in her head that Greer was perfect? Surely, she can’t compete with Parker’s memory of his perfect deceased wife. Or can she?
When Amelia approaches Parker with her idea of being the surrogate to give birth to one or more of those frozen embryos how will he respond? How will their families react? How will Greer’s father react?
I enjoyed the frozen embryos aspect of the novel. The on again, off again friendship and romance of Amelia and Parker was sappier than what I like to read, but that’s just me. The dynamics of their relationship are complex and they have to grapple with a lot of emotional baggage.
If you’re looking for a southern beachy story with a hefty dose of what happens to forgotten or abandoned frozen embryos, I think you’ll love this novel by Salisbury, North Carolina native Kristy Woodson Harvey.
I read this novel for the October 24th meeting of Rocky River Readers Book Club at Rocky River Presbyterian Church. We had a good discussion. Everyone read the entire book, which is a good sign. We were in agreement that the ending was predictable, but it was a good book club selection.
The Second Husband, by Kate White
The Second Husband, by Kate White
This is a murder mystery with a chilling twist. Did Emma’s second husband kill her first husband?
Emma’s 37-year-old husband is killed in an alley in the Soho section of New York City. The crime is not solved.
A few months later, Emma meets Tom through a work connection. They marry. Life is good. In fact, it’s perfect until the day a police detective shows up to ask some leading questions.
Suddenly, Emma feels like she’s Suspect #1 in Derrick’s murder. But she knows she’s innocent. She didn’t kill him and she didn’t hire a hitman.
I think this novel would be a good choice for a book club.
Your First 1,000 Copies, by Tim Grahl
Your First 1000 Copies, by Tim Grahl
I give this nonfiction book about marketing for writers 10 stars on a scale of 1 to 5. I took copious notes. There are so many pointers in this book for someone in my position as I’m anticipating releasing several books in the coming 12 months.
Mr. Grahl has helped many authors launch their books. He’s been through the process enough times and recently enough that he knows what works and what doesn’t work. If you’re a writer hoping to publish a book – whether via the traditional publisher route or by self-publishing – you can benefit from reading this book.
Distant Flickers: Stories of Identity and Loss
Distant Flickers: Stories of Identity & Loss
Eight writers contributed short stories for this special anthology about identity and loss.
The book includes two short stories by Elizabeth Gauffreau, whose website and blog I wrote about in my September 26, 2022 blog post, Do you know about these 5 book bloggers?
Other authors featured in Distant Flickers are Donna Koros-Stramella, Keith Madsen, Carol LaHines, Jim Metzner, Joyce Yarrow, Rita Baker, and Amy E. Wallen.
Distant Flickers grew out of a spark of inspiration provided by a group of writers known as Telltale Authors. Each story ties into the subtitle. The topics are varied. There are secrets, loss, and identity issues. Each author writes in a way to pull you into the story. Soon you find yourself empathizing with the main character.
The name of that group gives me a perfect segway into the name of the other book of short stories I read in October….
Tell Tale, by Jeffrey Archer
Tell Tale: Stories, by Jeffrey Archer
Since I’m putting together a book of historical short stories, I’ve wanted to get back to reading more short stories. I need to get a handle on just what makes a good short story, right?
Although Jeffrey Archer is better known for his novels, I wanted to read some of his short stories. I found his stories in Tell Tale to be very entertaining.
My favorite stories in the collection were “The Road to Damascus,” “Who Killed the Mayor?” and “The Holiday of a Lifetime.”
Mr. Archer used a clever literary device in “The Holiday of a Lifetime.” He wrote three different endings for the story and encouraged the readers to select the one they preferred. What fun!
Until my next blog post
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post today!
I hope you have a good book to read and will find time to read it. If you have nieces, nephews, children, or grandchildren, it’s important for them to know you enjoy reading. They want to be like you.
If you live in the USA, vote tomorrow, unless you voted early. Our very democracy is on the ballot.
My reading was sporadic again in June. Perhaps it’s the nice
summer weather that’s pulling me outside and into other activities. I listened
to one complete book, finished reading a book I’d started reading in May, and I
read a short story by Ron Rash. I started several other books, but you’ll have
to wait and hear about them in August (if I finish reading them in July.)
Here are my impressions of what I did read.
Iron House, by John Hart
Iron House, by John Hart
In my June 17, 2019 blog post, https://janetswritingblog.com/2019/06/17/delving-deeper-into-dialects-and-accents-in-fiction/, I wrote about listening to Iron House, by John Hart and being distracted by the exaggerated Southern accent used by the professional reader on the audio edition of the novel. Since then, I looked at a print edition of the book to see how the dialogue was written. As I expected, it was written properly – not like it was portrayed on the audio. I should have read the book and skipped the audio edition.
I reread much of the book in printed form and got a lot more
out of it than I did when trying to listen to it. The story is set in North
Carolina. Iron House is the name of a reformatory school for boys. The story is
primarily about the lives of two boys who were sent to Iron House.
Enough background is included for the reader to get a feel
for the dreadful place, but then follows the one who got away, how his years at
Iron House damaged him and turned him into a killer. He wants to turn his life
around, but he soon finds out how difficult it will be to rid himself of the
lowlifes he has associated with.
It is not a pleasant read. So far, it is my least favorite
of John Hart’s novels. I will continue to give everything he writes a try,
though. This hasn’t turned me against his writing. I just won’t listen to any of his future books.
The
First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington, by Brad Meltzer and Josh
Mensch
The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington, by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch
I read 70% of this nonfiction book in May, then had to get
on the waitlist at the public library in order to finish reading it in June. I
have a habit of trying to read too many books, so this happens more often than
I’d like.
If you missed my comments about this book in my June 3, 2019 blog post, https://janetswritingblog.com/2019/06/03/4-or-5-books-i-read-in-may-2019/ , I invite you to click on this link and read it if this true story interests you. I really liked this book. It filled in some gaps in my American history education.
Until I read this book, I had no idea there was a conspiracy within the ranks of the Continental Army to kill General Washington in the early summer of 1776! To tell you how far that conspiracy reached within the ranks of the army would give too much away. You’ll have to read it for yourself.
“My Father Like a River,” a short story by Ron
Rash
This short story by Ron Rash grabbed my attention from the
opening line and held it to the end. In this story, Mr. Rash recalls a
frightful day of fishing in the New River in Watauga County, North Carolina in
1962 with his father and brother.
Ron’s brother got caught up in the river’s currents. It is
the story of how his father reacted and the example his father gave to his
family in this horrifying event and throughout his life as he lost a
good-paying management job and rebuilt a life for his family on a much lower
income.
Since my last blog
I submitted two true stories for possible publication in
future Chicken Soup for the Soul books. Writing fiction and writing real life
are quite different. The writing I did last week proved to me that I prefer
writing fiction. It will be months before I know if either of my submissions
will be published, but you know I will announce the verdicts in my blog.
Until my next blog
I hope you have a good book to read. In addition to other
books, I’m still reading Montauk,
by Nicola Harrison.
If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time.
Thank you for reading my blog. You
could have spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read
my blog.
Let’s continue the
conversation
What are you reading? Would you recommend it?
While I still have your attention, please tell one other
person about my blog either in person or via social media. Thank you!
Diane Chamberlain broke away from her usual form of writing novels and did a great job with time travel in The Dream Daughterr. The book begins in 1970 with a pregnant woman, Caroline Sears, finding out that her unborn baby has a heart defect.
The Dream Daughter, by Diane Chamberlain
It turns out that Caroline’s
brother-in-law has come to 1970 from the future. He knows that if Caroline can
find her way to the future, her unborn daughter can have fetal surgery – the
unthinkable in 1970.
I won’t give away any details of
Caroline’s journey. I’ll just say things don’t go smoothly. This trip across
decades will keep you turning pages.
There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie
Ephron
The title of this book caught by
attention and immediately took me back 60 years to nursery rhymes about the old
woman who lived in a shoe and the old woman who swallowed a fly. I’d never read
anything by Hallie Ephron, so I decided to give There Was an Old Woman a try.
The story involves multiple
generations, with an emphasis on several independent-living octogenarians.
Things in the neighborhood keep disappearing. What’s happening? Who is doing
this? Is it the strange man across the street?
There Was an Old Woman, by Hallie Ephron
Thrown into the mix is a subplot
about the B-25 Mitchell bomber that crashed into the Empire State Building on
July 28, 1945. Ms. Ephron sheds a light on that much-forgotten event by making
one of the main characters in the book be a survivor of that plane crash. I
must admit, I did not know about that tragedy in which 14 people were killed.
There Was an Old Woman
is categorized as a thriller, but it did not come across to me as such. It’s
more like a neighborhood mystery in which the daughter of one of the
80+-year-olds is forced to come home and deal with her mother’s illness and
neglected house. The book has received an interesting mix of 1-star and 5-star
reviews, with most reviews falling into the 3- or 4-star categories.
Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown,
Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back, by Jackie Speier
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this
memoir by United States Representative Jackie Speier of California’s 14th
congressional district. I was not aware that Ms. Speier survived the Jonestown
Massacre, so that fact alone drew me to this memoir.
Undaunted, by Jackie Speier
What a life Ms. Speier has had! When
she was 28 years old, she worked for California Congressman Leo Ryan. She and
others accompanied Ryan to Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana on
November 14, 1978 to rescue individuals being held there against their will.
Those who are old enough to remember that fateful event know that things rapidly soured upon the delegation’s arrival. Congressman Ryan was murdered and Jackie Speier was shot five times and nearly died.
For someone like me who is a history
and political “junkie,” this memoir was compelling and inspiring. Ms. Speier
writes about her widowhood, motherhood, her lifelong work in politics, and her
40-year determination to overcome the scars she has from her Jonestown
experience.
Since my last blog post
I continue to receive encouraging comments in response to my December 17, 2018 blog post, https://janetswritingblog.com/2018/12/17/to-write-or-not-to-write/. I appreciate each and every one of them and each and every one of my blog readers. I have a more positive attitude about my novel in progress since being bolstered up by so many of you over the last three weeks.
The holidays turned out not to be
conducive to my getting back to putting words on paper (or the computer screen,
as the case may be.) I’ve mulled the story over and over in my mind, though,
and I intend to get back to writing that book this week. I need my blog readers
to hold me accountable!
I’ve read many helpful blog posts
and articles this week about the various facets of writing. One in particular
hit a chord with me, but I’ve misplaced the link to it. The piece recommends
that an aspiring novelist publish one or more short story collections in order
to build readership. I’m kicking around that idea. It makes sense. The theory
is that more people will want to buy my novel if they have read and liked my
short stories. I needed one more project!
Call me a klutz if you want to,
because I think I qualify. In the last four or five days I’ve broken a toe on
both feet, but not at the same time. Don’t laugh; broken toes are painful.
Until
my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Reckoning, by John Grisham.
If
you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing
time. I hope I do, too!
Thank you for reading my blog. You could have
spent the last few minutes doing something else, but you chose to read my blog.
I appreciate it! I welcome your comments.
Let’s
continue the conversation.
Have you read any books recently that you’d recommend
to me and my blog readers?
Have any of you writers had experience – good or bad –
in publishing short stories to build readership prior to publishing your first
novel?
March brought a return of cooler weather than we had in February in North Carolina. It also brought a stack of good books. I blogged about some of them last Monday (Some March Reading), and today I’m blogging about the rest of those that I read last month.
Four Short Stories: In Need of Assistance, Saving the Unicorn, Faerie Blues, and Trophy Hunting, by Chris Andrews
Four Short Stories: In Need of Assistance, Saving the Unicorn, Faerie Blues, and Trophy Hunting — by Chris Andrews
Science fiction and fantasy are not my reading genres of choice, but Chris Andrews and I connected with each other in the blogosphere as two struggling writers. (Actually, I’m struggling. I’m not so sure about Chris.) We live in different hemispheres but I have learned a great deal from him about writing. He recently published an e-book of four short stories and I was eager to read them.
“In Need of Assistance” leads off the short story collection. Well written and suspenseful, this person (me) who never reads sci-fi got pulled into the story and thought it ended too soon. In other words, I wanted to know what happened next.
The second story in this e-book is “Saving the Unicorn.” It is about a magician who travels 4,000 years back in time to free the last unicorn…. or is it?
“Faerie Blues” is the third story in Chris’ book. The identity of the faerie is a surprise.
The fourth and last story in the book is “Trophy Hunting.” This story is survival of the fittest with a twist.
Following the four short stories are the first seven chapters of Chris’ novel, Divine Prey, which is due for release in May 2018.
The Atomic City Girls, by Janet Beard
The Atomic City Girls, by Janet Beard
This historical novel was inspired by the creation of Oak Ridge, Tennessee during World War II and the top-secret work carried on there in the development of the atomic bomb.
Ms. Beard invented characters from all walks of like and guides the reader to like most of them and identify with them as much as is possible for we who live in a different time. I liked that she included the black people as well as the white people who lived and worked at Oak Ridge because, as much as they had in common, their housing and treatment by the US Army was quite different. It was in the racially segregated South and the book stands as witness to the prejudice and unequal treatment that existed legally at that time.
The author included not only Christians but an atheist and a Jewish physicist. This book’s cast of characters runs the gamut from redneck bigot to the Jewish scientist whose family had surely died in Germany during the War. True to the history of the facility at Oak Ridge, some characters are poorly educated while others are highly educated, but the emphasis is on the everyday people who worked there and did not know what they were working on.
Ms. Beard follows each character and through them she allows the reader to experience World War II on the home front in the USA and through the stress and struggles of the people who worked in complete secrecy at Oak Ridge. She brings to life the inevitable inner conflicts experienced by some of the scientists who worked there and at Los Alamos, New Mexico as they were simultaneously excited by the physics of the atomic bomb and yet horrified by the realities of what the unleashing of such a weapon would mean and the suffering it would cause for thousands of innocent people.
I never had really thought about how conflicted some of those scientists must have felt. I’d also never given much thought to how many thousands of people worked at Oak Ridge and the majority not knowing they were working on developing an atomic bomb until the day the first one was dropped on Hiroshima.
Need to Know, by Karen Cleveland
Need to Know, by Karen Cleveland
This is a debut novel by Karen Cleveland. It has received rave reviews from highly-respected authors, so I was eager to read this espionage thriller. After having read it, all I can say is, “Wow!”
Written by a former CIA analyst, this novel has a female CIA analyst working in a division studying Russia and looking for Russian sleeper cells in the USA. I don’t want to spoil the story for you, so I’ll just say her marriage and work ethic are tested to the limit.
This novel will make you wonder who you can trust. It is the story of betrayal on many levels, and it will keep you turning pages and wishing you didn’t have to stop to eat, sleep, or work. If you like to read espionage thrillers, you will love this book.
A Piece of the World, by Kristina Baker Kline
A Piece of the World, by Christina Baker Kline
We’re all familiar with Andrew Wyeth’s most famous painting, “Kristina’s World.” This historical novel is based on the imaginary life of the woman lying in a semi-prone position in the grass on the hillside below the house in that painting.
The author, who also wrote The Orphan Train, did a beautiful job developing the characters in A Piece of the World. They were so believable, the reader will forget the book is fiction. The woman in the painting, Kristina, becomes increasingly disabled due to an unknown condition affecting her legs. She lives in the grey clapboard house on the hill as depicted in the painting. Unable and unwilling to empathize with their daughter, Kristina’s parents do little to try to get her help.
Drawn to the feel and essence of the old house, Andrew, the son of artist N.C. Wyeth comes and asks if he can paint. He sketches and paints Kristina’s brother, but the brother has little patience for posing so Kristina becomes his most consistent model. He continues his work for years.
Kristina falls in love, but is it with Andrew? I’ll leave that for you to discover if you choose to read the book.
Another Ocean to Cross, by Ann Griffin
Another Ocean to Cross, by Ann Griffin
After reading Ann Griffin’s guest blog post on Writers in the Storm about how to or how not to use family history in your fiction (http://writersinthestormblog.com/2017/12/writing-fiction-using-family-history/), I pre-ordered her debut historical novel, Another Ocean to Cross. I followed her blog and she, subsequently, followed mine.
In Another Ocean to Cross, Ann Griffin weaves a compelling story about 18-year-old Renata Lowenthal, a Jewish woman desperate to escape Germany in 1938 as Hitler makes life ever-more tenuous for the Jewish population. Renata is an artist and her gentile boyfriend is in the military. He has to leave Munich, but he is smuggling Renata’s renderings of the Third Reich’s mistreatment of Jews to journalists in Switzerland.
No matter what the world throws at Renata, she meets the challenge.
The descriptions in this book are vivid and draw on all the senses. Being about the Jews who escaped to Egypt, this book enlightened me about an aspect of World War II that I hadn’t known much about.
Renata struggles to convince her parents that it is imperative that they get out of Germany and try to get to Palestine before it’s too late to escape. The tale Ms. Griffin spins will keep you turning the pages of this book and staying up at night to read just one more chapter. I will not give more details because you will want to read this novel and I don’t want to take away any suspense for you. It will take you and Renata to some surprising locations.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, by Francine Prose
In case your eyes have glazed over, I’ll save my comments about this book until next Monday’s blog post.
Since my last blog post
I have continued to read about writing and study areas I need help with. I have worked on my outline for The Spanish Coin, the working title for what I hope will be my first novel.
One of my readers reported difficulty in getting my comments section below to work. If you have trouble with it, too, please send me a message through the contact form/newsletter sign-up sheet below. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.
My blog steadily attracts more readers and followers, which is gratifying. One new reader and follower, Neil, also signed up for my sometime-in-the-future newsletters. Thank you, Neil.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading The Last Child, by John Hart, so I’ll be ready to read The Hush in a few weeks.
If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time
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When I Googled “images of chow-chow,” I only found photos of chow dogs and pandas. (I’m not sure why a few panda pictures were scattered among those of dog, but that’s what I got.) I wasn’t looking for dog pictures. I’m not talking about grandma’s lost dog. I’m talking about a condiment made up of green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, bell peppers, spices, and vinegar.
I finally found some pictures of chow-chow but, not wanting to risk breaking copyright laws, I chose not to include one in today’s post. Pictures are an important aspect of blogging, so I try to include at least one in each post.
But I digress.
Story’s inspiration
When fall came, my mother started looking for homemade chow-chow to buy. She liked to eat it along with turnip and mustard greens and black-eyed peas. That memory of my mother inspired me to write the following short story. Since it’s fewer than 1,000 words, it qualifies as flash fiction – which is something I didn’t think I was capable of writing!
The following story is pure fiction. I never knew either of my grandmothers. All names are fictitious. It’s all a bit of surprise to me. I never dreamed I’d write a story about chow-chow!
A Short Story/Flash Fiction: “In Search of Grandma’s Chow-Chow”
Millie walked up and down the rows of tents at the farmers’ market. Her eyes quickly scanned each stall for canned homemade chow-chow. A stroke had left her mother unable to speak or write. The chow-chow recipe, which had been Millie’s grandmother’s, was trapped in her mother’s head, unable to get out.
She thought if she could find someone else’s chow-chow that tasted like her mother’s, maybe she could get the recipe. Nothing would please her more than to duplicate the special condiment that her mother liked so much.
Millie visited every farmer’s market, country store, and produce stand she found. She’d bought enough chow-chow and pickle relish in the last five years to sink a ship. Every time she came home with another jar of chow-chow, her mother’s eyes danced in anticipation.
“Maybe this will be the one, Mama,” Millie said one day as she held up the jar of chow-chow she’d bought that afternoon. Her mother smiled a lopsided smile and nodded in silence.
The next day Millie cooked pinto beans and cornbread. The latest jar of chow-chow was given a place of honor in the center of the table.
“Oh no. Not more chow-chow!” 14-year-old Darrell said. “I don’t think I can face it anymore.”
“You don’t have to eat it,” Millie said. “Just humor me and your grandmother, okay?”
Millie spooned a big helping of beans on her mother’s plate with a wedge of cornbread on the side. Then, with great fanfare, she topped the beans with a spoonful of chow-chow and put the plate in front of her mother. Millie waited expectantly, almost praying this would be “the one.”
Yet again, her mother struggled to get a spoonful of beans and chow-chow to her crooked mouth. After a few seconds of deliberate chewing, and with all eyes on her, she shook her head.
Millie slumped in her chair and let out an audible sigh. “I never thought it would be so hard to find chow-chow like Mama used to make.”
“Don’t give up,” Millie’s husband, John, said. “Maybe the next jar will be the charm.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Millie said. “I can’t give up now. Let’s drive to the mountains this Sunday to see the fall leaves. I bet I’ll find lots of good chow-chow up there.”
“It’s worth a try,” John said. “The trip might do us all good.”
The next Sunday, Millie packed a picnic lunch. The family went to the early worship service at their church before heading for the Blue Ridge Mountains. They stopped at every country store and produce stand by the side of the road. Millie left each one armed with at least one jar of chow-chow and a carefully written note giving the name and address of the person who made it.
At the last place they stopped, the shop keeper handed her a pre-printed piece of paper. “Here’s the name of the lady who made it,” he said. She folded it up without reading it and put it in the bag with the chow-chow.
The next morning, Millie lined up the new jars of chow-chow on the kitchen counter. She studied each one. She selected the jar she would open that night. When the family gathered for supper, all eyes fell on Millie’s mother. Darrell suggested that his father include in the evening’s blessing a plea asking God to let this be the last jar of chow-chow his mother would have to buy.
“God has better things to do with his time than worry about chow-chow,” John said. Darrell couldn’t help but wonder if his father secretly prayed for God to make this jar be “the one.”
Millie put a plate of greens and black-eyed peas in front of her mother and smiled. Her mother tasted the beans and chow-chow. A broad smile filled her face and she gave a slow but deliberate nod of her head.
“Eureka!” Millie shouted. She jumped up and gave her mother a big hug. Then she rushed to the kitchen counter and unfolded the note that accompanied that jar of chow-chow.
“Drum roll!” Darrell said.
“And the winner is . . .” John said.
“Marjorie Holbrooks of Shady Creek!” Millie said.
After supper, Millie took her cell phone out of her pocket and called the number on the piece of paper. “Mrs. Holbrooks?” Millie asked when a woman answered the phone. “You don’t know me, but I bought a jar of your chow-chow yesterday. It tastes just like what my mother and grandmother used to make. I wondered if you could give me the recipe.”
Mrs. Holbrooks told Millie that it was an old family recipe but she’d be happy to e-mail it to her. Millie told Mrs. Holbrooks that it seemed like more than a coincidence that her chow-chow tasted just like the one that had been passed down in her family, too. They each named their mothers’ maiden names and grandmothers’ names only to discover a connection.
When Millie got off the phone she couldn’t wait to tell her mother about the conversation. “Guess what! Marjorie Holbrooks is the granddaughter of your Grandma Bradley’s cousin Rachel. She’s sending me the recipe tonight. It’s been passed down in her branch of the family, too.”
Millie’s mother smiled and a tear rolled down her cheek. She mouthed the words, “Small world. Thank you.”
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read. I finished reading The Last Ballad, by Wiley Cash last night and started reading The Stolen Marriage, by Diane Chamberlain. I’m listening to A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles as I can find the time. Too bad I can’t read one book and listen to another one at the same time!
The Rocky River Readers Book Club will discuss Signs in the Blood, by Vicki Lane tonight. I read it a few years ago and immediately became a fan of this North Carolina writer. If you’re looking for good southern Appalachian Mountain fiction, I suggest you read this book. It is the first in a series by Vicki Lane.
If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time.
Janet's Writing Blog 