Maddy Kennedy is divorcing her unfaithful husband when she learns he has a secret more devastating than adultery.
Jenny, Maddy's mother, has taken the identity of Maddy's biological
father to the grave with her. With a madman stalking the family,
attempting to uncover hidden bank robbery money dating back to the days
of the infamous Jesse James, Maddy's only hope is to find the answers to
these secrets--to find her biological father before she loses her
sanity or possibly her life. Can she do this without endangering the
"daddy" who has raised her as his own? Maddy goes back to Willow Shade,
the family farm in Logan County, Kentucky in quest of the truth.
Even though this novel is totally fiction, you will laugh, cry,
reminisce and recognize characters, rivers, bridges and caves of Logan
County, Kentucky, especially "Daddy," patterned after the author's own
dad.
EXCERPT:
She exited I-65 onto the gravel State road.
White-faced Herefords dotted fields of sweet clover. Corn tassels
nodded and tobacco stalks waved green arms in the wind. Maddy pulled the
Pinto over, slid out of the car, and stepped onto the Jasper River
Bridge.
"This is it, Welby." She shifted her eyes to the
passenger seat, patted the dog's head and loosened his collar. "If I had
a dime for each time I played under this bridge, I'd be rich now."
Leaning on the paint-peeled guardrail, she chewed on the tip of her
left forefinger. Lacy white foam collected on the banks of the swollen
stream below. It had rained yesterday.
Maddy sighed and summoned
her courage. Willow Shade Farm spread across the sloping fields beyond.
She swept her hand in the direction of the old plantation diminished to
an ordinary farm. "When I was a young girl, I made believe I was
Scarlet O'Hara and the farm was Tara." She surveyed the scene before
her. The red roof of the main house dwarfed the smaller buildings like
the owners had once dominated the slaves who subsisted in the little
houses.
She took a deep breath, got back into the car, and
followed the winding drive up to the farmhouse. Yeah, I know. Now it's
more like Tara, post bellum. That old verandah's going to collapse one
of these days. She shielded her eyes from the morning sun with her hand.
"Look, there's Daddy on the porch."
Daddy leaned against a
tall, white column, shoulders stooped, one thumb hitched into a strap of
his bib-overalls, scrutinizing the car pulling into his drive. Howard
Livingston would always be her real daddy even after she found the man
who sired her. She wasn't looking to replace him. She only wanted to
find her heritage. Daddy met her at the end of the walk. Weathered hands
pulled a red handkerchief out of his hind pocket and blotted his eyes.
"Maddy, you've come home. I been praying you'd show up. Been worried
about you. Going through a divorce has to be hard. On Kenneth, too, I
reckon."
"I'm fine. Really I am. Wouldn't know about Kenneth."
Author: Jean Kinsey
Length: Novella
Category: Inspirational
Rating: Warm
Photography/Artwork: Carol Fiorillo
No comments:
Post a Comment