WE PRESS ON.

FAITHFUL SONS—

My second in the Faithful Sons Series will be e-published in the next couple of weeks with Barnes and Noble's Pub-It. You will be able to read it on Nook, or you can download Nook for PC and all other electronic devices on which you may read your favorite books, if you do not have a Reader.

I should have long ago published Isaac's House, but I let a couple of lovely clients string me along. I do hold them both in highest esteem; in fact, I love them both very much, even though they have used me up and caused me much angst over the last year and a half. Forgetting those things which are behind... (Right?) We press on.

So . . . I am putting the final editing touches to my own manuscript; my friend, Dale, who is a superb artist, is designing the cover; and I will be ready to start the publishing process. I hope you will be looking forward to adding Isaac's House to your e-book wish list.

The woodsy trail in the top picture is actually the road that leads to Isaac's house in Slate Springs, Mississippi. And this is the ancient tree with the roots exposed. The house is still standing, though in shambles. You can barely see it behind the tree in the woods. I wrote this in the prologue:


Isaac's house sits on a beautiful piece of the Old South smothered by sweet gums and pines that tower and obscure and lofty magnolias that tell their own story. The old bungalow, with chipped paint and moss-ridden green roof and closed-up dogtrot is collapsing now, reminiscent of how the Confederacy fell apart piece by piece, yet this place still whispers to me a tale of carpetbaggers and scalawags and southern patriots.

The Paynes are my fictional family, cast with all the reality I can conjure to align with my real family, the Clarks of Sarepta and Slate Springs, Mississippi. In my waking moments and sometimes in the late night hours, I see Isaac’s house, breathe in the faint fragrance of wisteria, hear laughter, and know that he and Jennie and their nine children are finally free from the bondage of the War and its aftermath. I close my eyes, set my imagination free, and shine my fictional light directly on the history of my family, calling to mind the reality of redemption and restoration. And I dream and write of how it might have been.

Jane Bennett Gaddy, Ph.D.
Author
The Mississippi Boys