Yesterday morning I went for a lovely stroll in my neighborhood before meeting two of my literary friends for a late lunch at Grace 1720 in Norcross Georgia. On my stroll I took the time to look at the landscape around me and opened my mind to the sounds of nature. People need to take the time in the day for oneself to reflect and to appreciate what we have. Too often we are so focused on any hardships that we are going through, we lose sight of the good.
Ana Raquel is working on a story and Deborah Mantella is working on her second book to be published hopefully soon! They both have so many creative ideas that inspires me to keep working on my own stories and projects. Deborah’s story. “My Sweet Vidalia” is a wonderful read and this is a book that you want to hold the book in your hand. Below is the book blurb and I want to encourage you all to read her story. Women especially….
Tomorrow, I’m sharing a chapter from Janet Stafford’s book series, Saint Maggie. This is an important series for our American History on several levels and I hope you take the time to come back tomorrow to read a sample of her work.
Before I sign off, I want to thank all the book bloggers and readers out there for supporting stories and the authors who write them. Happy Easter and God bless.
Stephanie M. Hopkins
My Sweet Vidalia by Deborah Mantella
On July 4, 1955, in rural Georgia, an act of violence threatens the life of Vidalia Lee Kandal Jackson’s pre-born daughter. Despite the direst of circumstances, the spirit of the lost child refuses to leave her ill-equipped young mother’s side.
For as long as she is needed―through troubled pregnancies, through poverty, through spousal abuse and agonizing betrayals―Cieli Mae, the determined spirit child, narrates their journey. Serving as a safe place and sounding board for Vidalia’s innermost thoughts and confusions, lending a strength to her momma’s emerging voice, Cieli Mae provides her own special brand of comfort and encouragement, all the while honoring the restrictions imposed by her otherworldly status.
Vidalia finds further support in such unlikely townsfolk and relations as Doc Feldman, Gamma Gert and her Wild Women of God, and, most particularly, in Ruby Pearl Banks, the kind, courageous church lady, who has suffered her own share of heartache in their small Southern town of yesteryear’s prejudices and presumptions.
My Sweet Vidalia is wise and witty, outstanding for its use of vibrant, poetic language and understated Southern dialect, as well as Mantella’s clear-eyed observations of race relations as human relations, a cast of unforgettable characters, an in-depth exploration of the ties that bind, and its creative perspective. My Sweet Vidalia is a rare, wonderful, and complex look at hope, strength, the unparalleled power of unconditional love, and a young mother’s refusal to give up.
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