Bell Bridge Books

Small Southern Towns: They Ain’t Always Quaint

By C. Hope Clark

     Born in Mississippi and raised in South Carolina, my roots run crazy deep into the Delta soil of one state and the Lowcountry pluff mud of the other. My grandfather ran a cotton farm, and my grandmother taught me to eat homemade biscuits with maple syrup warmed on the gas stove. When I told them as a child that picking cotton didn’t look so hard, back before a lot of farmers could afford cotton picker machines, my grandmother sewed a miniature (and floral) cotton sack and ushered me to the fields. I never questioned the ease of manual labor again, especially on a farm.

So no surprise that I wound up with an agriculture degree from Clemson and fell in love with everything rural. After a career in that realm, I turned to writing my mysteries. And guess what showed up in the stories? Crime in the country.

Newberry Sin is the fourth in the Carolina Slade Mystery Series, with the setting in a small rural community actually named Newberry.

All rural Southern communities come off as quaint upon first blush. White antebellum homes, some kept up royally while others are allowed to age, a few not so gracefully. Rockers on the porches and flags on the columns. The American flag, of course, accompanied by the state flag and/or one for the appropriate football-playing university. Azaleas, of course, plus forsythia, dogwood, camellia, and spirea dotting the yards in pastels and white. Southerners love their flowers.

And behind all that charm are stories to curl your toes. The older and more quaint the town, the more stories are whispered behind hands at luncheons and skeletons hid in closets behind the winter coats.

I won’t spill her name, but in my research on small towns, trying to find yet another to use in a novel, this homegrown native greeted me for lunch with a pound cake, apparently a tradition, and she wouldn’t allow me to pay for my own lunch, because I was a guest in HER town. Newberry . . . the center of the universe, she said. “You ought to make us a setting in one of your books.”

She elaborated the details of Revolutionary War skirmishes and the passed-down stories of ghosts, affairs, and what could only be miracles that kept some of their ancestors alive during battles.

Railroads, bars, and (cough) painted ladies helped originate the town. A room still existed in a still-standing community center that harbored any gentleman farmer’s wife for the duration of the time he did business in town, so the wife didn’t come in contact with the street walkers.

Many a husband and son fought in the War Between the States, the cemetery sprawling for acres. Graves still maintained with insignias, with current ancestors maintaining the sites with stiff, admiring pride. Several families retained bragging rights that five ancestors signed the Order of Secession, causing South Carolina to lead the way for 10 other states to follow.

Of course, ghosts abounded, from any and all of the wars, not to mention the occasional lover’s loss, leaving them roaming in search for their paramour. One jumped from the bell tower of the local college. The Bride of West End still awaits her groom for their wedding. Molly’s Rock serves as a magnet for spirits who took their own lives.

Beneath the old Ritz theater, one could supposedly still hear screams where ages ago the homeless were murdered. At the Newberry Opera House, the ghost of Penelope made a fairly frequent appearance, moving seats and closing doors.

And someone way back got in legal trouble, relocated to Australia and became a cannibal.

I couldn’t write it all down.

Newberry has it idiosyncrasies and colored past, but so does every other sweet little Southern town and crossroad. It just takes you inviting someone local to lunch and asking, “I’m looking for a setting for my book.” Honey, you’ll fill a notebook with stuff that isn’t in any history book.

C. Hope Clark’s newest release is Newberry Sin, set in an idyllic small Southern town where blackmail and sex are hush-hush until they become murder. The fourth in the Carolina Slade Mysteries. Hope speaks to conferences, libraries, and book clubs across the country, is a regular podcaster for Writer’s Digest, and adores connecting with others. She is also founder of FundsforWriters.com, an award-winning site and newsletter service for writers. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina with her federal agent husband where they spin mysteries just for fun. www.chopeclark.com

Newberry Sin

Book 4 of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series

EPIC Award Winning Series

“Author C. Hope Clark brings to life . . . endearing and strong-minded characters that linger in your mind long after the last page is turned.” —New York Times bestselling author Karen White

Beneath an idyllic veneer of Southern country charm, the town of Newberry hides secrets that may have led to murder.

When a local landowner’s body, with pants down, is found near Tarleton’s Tea Table Rock—a notorious rendezvous spot, federal investigator Carolina Slade senses a chance to get back into the field again. Just as she discovers what might be a nasty pattern of fraud and blackmail, her petty boss reassigns her fledgling case to her close friend and least qualified person in their office.

Forced to coach an investigation from the sidelines, Slade struggles with the twin demons of professional jealousy and unplanned pregnancy. Something is rotten in Newberry. Her personal life is spiraling out of control. She can’t protect her co-worker. And Wayne Largo complicates everything when the feds step in after it becomes clear that Slade is right.

One wrong move and Slade may lose everything. Yet it’s practically out of her hands . . . unless she finds a way to take this case back without getting killed.

Reflections From My Front Porch

by Lora Lee

Hey there, y’all! Come on up and sit a spell on my front porch. It’s a lovely Fall afternoon, so relax in that rocker over there and let’s visit.

Did you know there’s a Clergy Appreciation Day? You didn’t? Neither did I. I even checked my calendar. Nothing. Zip. Nada. However, I trust the Bell Bridge marketing department when they tell me there is such a day. After all, they’re pretty smart about that sort of thing.

Now, if any of y’all have read Bringing in the Thieves, my cozy mystery in the Joyful Noise Mysteries, you know that the main character is a preacher’s daughter. Yep, Frankie Lou is a PK and her halo is in dire need of polishing. Seems she didn’t appreciate her clergyman father during her rebellious teen years. Hmmm. I wouldn’t know anything about that.

What’s that you ask? Oh, of course, I’m a PK. Always have been, but I’m not at all like Frankie Lou, bless her heart. After all, I’m a lot older and I know better. Life when I was growing up was different for a PK. Frankie Lou’s modern day problems were . . . well, you can read all about her in the book. I’ll give you a brief inside look into my own childhood days and you can draw your own conclusions.

There was one period during WWII when daddy was a Captain and chaplain in the US ARMY that I remember well. That was a worrisome time ‘cause my big brother was in the US NAVY somewhere out in the Pacific during that time, too. Momma shed a lot of tears while both of them were gone.

The time came when Momma and I were able to move where Daddy was stationed. That meant attending a new school where I didn’t know a soul. Can’t say I liked fourth grade that year.

Daddy was so handsome in his uniform. I felt pretty special when we ate in the mess hall with the other officers. But one Thanksgiving, Daddy wanted us to eat dinner with the enlisted men. Momma agreed so that’s what we did. Daddy loved those young men like his own son and did his best to prepare them for what they might be facing if they were sent overseas. I’m pretty sure those men appreciated the clergy because the chapel was always filled every Sunday.

I only had eleven years to appreciate my clergyman father. I didn’t even appreciate God the day Daddy died, but through the years, Momma kept me on the straight and narrow with her unconditional love. My appreciation of the clergy has grown as I’ve matured. And believe it or not, God never gave up on me, either.

Thanks for visiting on the front porch with me today. Y’all come back, ya’ hear.

Lora Lee

Pick up Bringing in the Thieves, the first in the Joyful Noise Mysteries, today for only $1.99!

Walking the Story

By the time my debut historical novel, Keowee Valley, was published, I’d walked, hiked, trail run, swum, paddled, and climbed countless miles of rocks, roads, flatland and mountain trails, lakes and rivers in the foothills and mountains of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Some of this, I’d done as a child, because my family were outdoorsy types. Most, however, I’d done on my own: both as a camp counselor and backpacking guide in my teens and 20s, and on adventures with like-minded friends well into my 30s, the age I am now. Always, and until her death in 2015, I was joined by my faithful trail partner: my dog, Scout.

I go (and went) to the woods—and the forest, the lake, the mountaintop, the river—to “live deliberately,” much the same as Thoreau did in the mid-1800s (minus the wood-chopping). The “woods” bring me back to myself; there is no place I feel more authentic.

The heart of my historical novel, Keowee Valley, takes place in the woods—in the forests of the Southern Appalachians. In fact, nearly every scene in the wilderness sections of the novel occur in real spots: scenery in which I’ve hiked, rivers I’ve paddled (and fallen into), trails I’ve traversed, in all kinds of weather. It is a land I know intimately. I know it as well as the pages of my own heart.

Every time I write a story, place—or setting, as some like to call it—plays a vital role, as important as any character. Maybe it’s the Southern writer in me? Southern writers are such, of course, because of their place. Mostly, I think, it’s because I can’t separate from the land, and neither can my characters. After all, in Keowee Valley, Quinn falls head over heels in love with the dangerous, gorgeous, and wild Cherokee backcountry long before she ever lays eyes on the equally dangerous (and gorgeous, and wild) Jack Wolf.

Bio:

Katherine Scott Crawford is a novelist, newspaper columnist, college English teacher, hiker and mom who lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Her parenting and outdoor life column appears weekly in The Greenville News (South Carolina), and is often picked up by other newspapers across the country. She holds far too many degrees in English and writing, chases her children frequently through the Pisgah National Forest, and is currently at work (when she’s actually sitting down) on her next historical novel.

Pick up Keowee Valley by Katherine Scott Crawford today for just $1.99!

“A glorious debut from a gifted author.” – Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of Big Stone Gap and The Shoemaker’s Wife

“Keowee Valley is a terrific first novel by Katherine Scott Crawford–a name that should be remembered. She has a lovely prose style, a great sense of both humor and history, and she tells about a time in South Carolina that I never even imagined.” –Pat Conroy, bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and South of Broad.

On the edge of the wilderness, her adventure began.

She journeyed into the wilderness to find a kidnapped relative. She stayed to build a new life filled with adventure, danger, and passion.
Spring, 1768. The Southern frontier is a treacherous wilderness inhabited by the powerful Cherokee people. In Charlestown, South Carolina, twenty-five-year-old Quincy MacFadden receives news from beyond the grave: her cousin, a man she’d believed long dead, is alive–held captive by the Shawnee Indians. Unmarried, bookish, and plagued by visions of the future, Quinn is a woman out of place . . . and this is the opportunity for which she’s been longing.
Determined to save two lives, her cousin’s and her own, Quinn travels the rugged Cherokee Path into the South Carolina Blue Ridge. But in order to rescue her cousin, Quinn must trust an enigmatic half-Cherokee tracker whose loyalties may lie elsewhere. As translator to the British army, Jack Wolf walks a perilous line between a King he hates and a homeland he loves.
When Jack is ordered to negotiate for Indian loyalty in the Revolution to come, the pair must decide: obey the Crown, or commit treason . . .

“I found my true being…”

by Augusta Trobaugh

I have always believed that Southern writing is character-driven, rather than being plot-driven. So in this story, I brought together characters (folks!) who were all from different generations, social positions, and race.

I have so much fun watching as these characters drift into each others’ lives and begin interacting with each other in a most completely authentic manner.  At that time, I become an “observer,” rather than a “writer,” because at some time or other in a story, the characters simply take over, and I am left to chuckle at them or to weep for them.

Also, when I was growing up in rural Jefferson County, Georgia, I became fascinated by the many creeks in the area.  In particular, I remember being delighted when, riding in the car with my mother, we crossed the bridge over Boggy Gut Creek.  As a child, I pronounced it “boogie goot,” but my mother corrected me, and I was even more delighted by the real name.

I grew up in Stellaville, Georgia (population 82), and right down at the bottom of the hill  from my home was Brier Creek, where I watched salamanders and minnows and also the antics of several otters.

When the character of Pansy Jordan came to mind, I was impressed by her intention to do as she believed the Lord Jesus Christ had bade her to do: “Get yourself washed clean in the River Jordan.” Such was her strong intent that she changed her name from “Pansy” to “River.”  But when she finally came to realize exactly how far away the real River Jordan was, she consented to be baptized in Jordan Creek.  In that way, my love of Georgia’s numerous creeks was satisfied.

I had a truly blessed childhood, roaming free (usually on horseback) through the rural areas.  I found my true BEING in all of nature – especially the forests and creeks.

Find your true being with RIVER JORDAN – a March Monthly 100 for only $1.99!