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.

A quick insight into Rob Sangster’s process for writing Ground Truth!

I met the (future) love of my life at a party in an elegant home on the bank of the Mississippi River.  She was a novelist, a mystery writer. My professions were real estate development and practicing law, but I’d written an award-winning book on international travel, so I said, “What a coincidence. I’m a writer, too. May I offer you a glass of wine?”

Before long, to maintain a shred of credibility in this blossoming relationship, I felt compelled to figure out how to write a novel. My insatiable curiosity required me to write Ground Truth. When I discover something intriguing, I feel driven to explore it. If the topic turns out to be on the breaking wave of reality and is likely to come true in the foreseeable future, I make it the center of a suspenseful corkscrew of a plot. Then I populate the story with complex characters pursuing goals that inevitably bring them into conflict.

In Ground Truth, the action takes place in a corrupt law firm in San Francisco, a sacred cave in a Mexican mountain (where the sacred cave is crammed full of unstable nuclear material), and the Oval Office.

Ground Truth reached #1 on Amazon Kindle and is receiving very favorable reviews. My second novel, Deep Time, won the EPIC Award as Best Suspense/ Thriller novel of 2017.

The relationship that started all this is going strong and my curiosity remains unquenched, so my third suspense/thriller will be published this year.

Ground Truth by Rob Sangster is on sale for $1.99 until the 28th!

“A masterful, high-stakes thriller.”

—Lisa Turner, bestselling author of A Little Death in Dixie

Practicing law has never been so deadly.

Hotshot Stanford law professor Jack Strider is on the fast track to serve on the Supreme Court until a bullet and a nasty, front-page family scandal shatter that ambition.

After he’s unjustly fired from the law school faculty, a powerhouse law firm run by a former Secretary of State offers Jack a job and a chance for redemption. His first assignment: do whatever it takes to defend a sleazy corporate client in Juarez, Mexico, the Murder Capital of the World. Soon, Jack realizes that if he can’t stop his client, millions of people on both sides of the border will be poisoned.

Plunged into the violence of the Texas-Mexican borderlands, Jack discovers that he can trust no one, not even the law firm he works for, so when attorney Debra Vanderberg is sent to assist Jack, he doesn’t know whether she’s an ally or a spy. He has no choice but to trust her and pray he isn’t wrong.

Racing against the clock and dodging bullets, Jack and Debra uncover corporate greed and political corruption that lead all the way from a sacred cave in the Mexican mountains to the Oval Office. When the President of the United States refuses to stop the impending catastrophes, Jack risks everything, including his life. But can he learn the “ground truth” fast enough to save the millions destined to die?

Happy Reading!

I LEFT OUT THE EVIL ELF

by H.W. Buzz Bernard

Despite there being a warm and fuzzy Hallmark Channel Christmas moment in BLIZZARD—you know, a crackling blaze in a huge stone fireplace, the aroma of gingerbread and German stollen wafting through a warm house, and outside a polar gale rattling the limbs of skeletal trees—the book is a thriller.

I mean who wouldn’t want to go on a buck ninety-nine, wind-whipped, bullet-riddled odyssey in a Mercedes Geländewagen through the worst Southern blizzard on record?  And that’s not to mention the wolf pack escaped from a game reserve, drug-smuggling outlaw bikers hunkered down in a north Georgia “castle”—guys with names like Psycho, Cave Man, and Grizzly—and a pretend cop who carjacks my protagonist.  I probably should have crammed an evil elf into my cast of characters, but alas, I didn’t.

Of course, I had to coat my post-Christmas drama with my trademark pushing-the-envelope meteorological icing.  So I imagined Boston’s “Blizzard of ’78,” (which I experienced) displaced to the Deep South.  That storm, which is still considered Boston’s greatest, shut down the city for a week.  So you can imagine—well, I certainly did—what an event like that would do to Atlanta where even a forecast of snow flurries triggers more panic than a Zombie Apocalypse.

If you’re from or have visited places in northeast Georgia or the western Carolinas, some of the locales the drama sweeps you through, besides the ATL, may be familiar: Clayton, Georgia; Westminster, South Carolina, and Durham, North Carolina.

Like all of my novels, BLIZZARD is meant to thrilling and fun.  After all, as a novelist, I am in the entertainment business.  The book is designed to appeal to both your holiday spirit and your eagerness for adventure, and maybe even your sense of humor here and there.

As the dealer who leant the protagonist the Mercedes over Christmas vacation noted, upon seeing the SUV returned with shot-out windows, crumpled fenders, and a dead teddy bear in the rear seat: “So your Grandma in Durham, she was pissed, huh?  Late with her Christmas gifts?”

Remember, you can find out what this is all about for just $1.99 . . . until New Year’s Eve.

Pick up BLIZZARD for only $1.99 til the 31st!

And don’t forget to grab the rest of H.W. Buzz Bernard’s  Weather Series books!

From WALLY AVETT, Martins Creek, Murphy, NC   Jan. 3, 2017

I wrote LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE for my friends and readers here in our little mountain town, sometimes compared to Mayberry. I still write a column for our weekly newspaper where I was editor during the 1970’s. So, I know them and they all know me.

And to a certain degree, their stories fuel my stories. Like all my books, LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE is inspired by true incidents that actually happened; some I witnessed, some I participated in, and some I was told about.

There’s a gentle love story, backwoods humor, and some mystery. Real, indigenous characters are easily recognizable to my local readers.

Yes, it’s fiction, but a little girl from Ohio was really killed and partially eaten by a black bear in a nearby U. S. Forest Service campground. And, there was a small-town doctor who sold hillbilly babies to rich couples from Atlanta and Chattanooga, and kept no records. There was even once a Yankee gold payroll stolen away by the bushwhackers, but only in LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE did it end up buried under Wal-Mart!

My “brain trust” consisted of four faithful buddies who did first readings of all my manuscripts. Some got testy about the title I had chosen. “Who is the real Bigfoot?” they nagged. “Was it the giant Cherokee or the killer bear?”

I politely answered that it could be either one. They got upset and said, “You wrote the damn book and you don’t even know?”

It is what it is. You, gentle critics, make the call.

Happy reading – hope you enjoy LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE.

Pick up LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE for just $0.99! Don’t wait! This deal ends 1/31/17!

Killer bear, Appalachian psycho, Yankee gold . . .

He’s on the trail of something big . . .

Deep in the Great Smokies, a huge black bear kills a child at a campground, and a hunt begins in a quiet mountain community where such threats are rare. Wade, an outdoorsman and backwoods columnist, is quickly deputized to find and slay the massive beast terrorizing tourists and locals alike.

While on the trail, he is wounded by a pot-grower’s booby trap and stalked by Junior, an authentic Appalachian psychopath. Two fellow deputies are gunned down, and rumors of buried Civil War gold surface. Wade gets unexpected assistance from a wannabe writer whose gifts prove helpful even after mushroom trances and spiritual quests—enhanced by a Minnesota Vikings horn-helmet.

The discovery of a mysterious doll ties into grisly murders from the past, and Wade meets a tough, old Marine with a puzzling treasure map. All the while, the looming threat of Junior’s lethal lunacy stalks Wade and his colorful allies.

And don’t forget to pick up Wally Avett’s other Bell Bridge title: MURDER IN CANEY FORK:

It’s the trial of the century in a 1940’s North Carolina town.
Murder and vigilante justice.
War hero and law student Wes Ross has to save his uncle–but hide the truth.

Taught to shoot in the rough logging camps of the North Carolina swamps, Wes Ross remembers his lessons well. Dodging hostile gunfire with dozens of other young Marines, he storms a remote Pacific island as one of Carlson’s Raiders in the first commando-style attack of World War II. He blasts several Japanese snipers from their palm-tree hideouts with buckshot before an enemy bullet sends him home.
The Carolina homefront includes a new girlfriend and a new occupation, learning to be a rural lawyer in his uncle’s law office, including courtroom intrigue and what goes on behind the scenes. Wes, like his uncles, is a good man, the kind who takes up for the poor and downtrodden, looking out for those who are easy prey for bullies.
Frog Cutshaw is the storekeeper in the Caney Fork backwoods, a swaggering ex-moonshiner who is deadly with his ever-present .45 auto pistol. Frog’s daylight rape of a married woman and the brutal killing of her husband bring on Bible Belt vigilante justice, an eye for an eye, a life for a life.

About the Author:

Wally Avett is a retired journalist living in the Great Smoky Mountains of extreme southwestern North Carolina.
“My father was a country preacher,” he says. “So I grew up with good storytellers all around me, friends and family.
“For me, good writing has to be based on truth. I write like my Granny used to make quilts, producing fiction which is actually fashioned from bits and pieces of raw truth, modified and shaped as needed.”
He is an avid reader and gardener, a Sunday School teacher and bluegrass gospel singer, hunter, fisherman and reluctant handyman. He likes history, sometimes sells mountain cabins to retirees fleeing the heat of Florida and often tells funny stories.

by H.W. Buzz Bernard

Okay, I admit it.  Even though I’m old and cranky, I still harbor a bit of nostalgia when it comes to the December holidays.  I love the trappings of a traditional Christmas: melodious carols, twinkling lights, a nip in the air.

(But egg nog?  Forget it.  Gimme a shot of Jack on the rocks instead.)

Anyhow, there’s a heartfelt, evocative Christmas scene in Blizzard, one I truly enjoyed writing. It flowed from memories of Christmases past in another time and another place, when I dwelled not in the South, but in a location closer to the North Pole, New England.  (Which is as near Santa’s digs as I ever want to get.)

Now I live in Atlanta—and have for many years—where frigid December holidays are as scarce as Democrats.  So to write my scene, I journeyed into times gone by.  I felt the warmth of blazes crackling in stone fireplaces, sniffed the aromas of gingerbread and fresh-cut fir wafting through happy homes, and peered out windows to watch Siberian winds whipping over icy ponds.

But why, you ask, would a thriller writer be, well, thrilled to paint a Currier & Ives scene with words?  I had a purpose, of course.

I placed my protagonist, a decent man and loving father and husband, in an “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” moment of holiday warmth and tranquility before thrusting him—purveyor of Grinchiness that I can be (ain’t being a novelist fun?)—into a frozen nightmare of violence and death.

Think he can survive?  You can find out for only $1.99. Just click the cover!

BEGINNINGS

I love to watch movies about how famous people got their start, especially singers.  The other night I saw a TV rerun of WALK THE LINE, the biopic about Johnny Cash. There’s something fascinating about how he barged into Sam Philips’ recording studio in Memphis and talked the man into giving him an audition.  Cash and his two buddies do a gospel song for Philips and he’s obviously not very interested. When they finish, Philips says, “I can’t sell gospel music. Got anything else?” That’s the big turning point.  Philips didn’t say Cash couldn’t sing.  He wanted to hear something different. Now, I’m on the edge of my seat.  What did Johnny Cash do next? He sang a little song he wrote himself, FOLSOM PRISON BLUES.  And that sealed the deal.  By the way, Joaquin Phoenix played Johnny Cash and really sang the songs himself.  Amazing.

My interest in big breaks that launch careers isn’t limited to singers. It also extends to writers (big surprise).  The story about how Stephen King sold his first book sounds as though it was scripted for dramatic effect.  As many of you may know, his first novel was Carrie, a tale of a bullied young girl with telekinetic powers who takes revenge on her tormenters.  Initially, he wrote three pages of what was intended to be a short story, then believing it was no good, tossed the pages away. His wife later took them out of the trash, read them, and encouraged him to develop the story into a novel.  After thirty publishers rejected the book, Doubleday picked it up for a modest advance. The hardcover sold only 13,000 copies, but the paperback rights went for $400,000, half to King, half to Doubleday.  The sale of this book rescued King and his wife from a barely solvent existence.  For more details on all this, see http://mentalfloss.com/article/53235/how-stephen-kings-wife-saved-carrie-and-launched-his-career

I also like to hear stories about how people met their spouses. Here’s mine. I first saw my future wife when my family traveled from our home in Toledo, Ohio, to Jacksonville, Florida, for my uncle’s wedding.  At the home of the bride to be, I was introduced to her incredibly gorgeous younger sister, Lois.  This dazzling girl was dressed in a sparkling white blouse and white shorts.  On the floor was a toddler eating some kind of soft candy that he had smeared all over his fingers and face.  Suddenly noticing that his mother had left the room, the toddler began to cry.  Thinking only about the welfare of the little boy, Lois picked the child up in her arms to comfort him. This of course soon led to the toddler smearing candy all over Lois’s white blouse. And Lois didn’t mind at all! I knew then that this girl was also beautiful on the inside.

For several years we communicated with each other by letter and phone calls (this was long before the invention of texting and Skype).  Then, for a variety of reasons, (rigors of college mostly) I stopped writing. One day I received a card from Lois.  On the front it said, I’D LIKE TO GET ON YOUR GOOD SIDE.  Inside, it read, IF YOU HAVE ONE.

Over fifty years later, I still admire her for choosing that card.  She humbled herself by letting me know she was still interested, but also, at the same time, managed to stick it to me.

In thinking about how people meet, I’m reminded of Carl and Beth, the two lead characters in my medical thriller, THE BLOOD BETRAYAL. (Yes, we’ve now come to the commercial portion of our program) Anyway, I’m willing to bet that no two people ever met in a more unusual manner than those two.

I can imagine Carl relating the story to one of his grandkids.

“Tell me how you and Grandma met,” the boy says to Carl.  Carl smiles, thinks back, and shakes his head.  “Well, I was driving away from this little town where I’d just upset the local doctor so bad that I was sure he wanted to kill me. Then the craziest thing happened.”

“What?” the boy asks.

Carl reaches for a book and hands it to his grandson.  “It’s all in here, my boy.  And better understood if you read about it yourself.”

I’d tell you more, but I agree with Carl that you should read the book for yourself and not depend on someone like me to interpret it for you. (Although if you were going to rely on a guide through it, I’d probably be a good choice.)

-Don Donaldson

THE BLOOD BETRAYAL is on sale for just $1.99! Grab it today!

Meet My Hero

by Donnell Ann Bell

Since I write romantic suspense, one of the requirements is that I include a hero. He’s tall and buff and smart and the type that readers will either swoon or fan themselves. But today I’d like to tell you about a real life hero who does neither of that when you look at her.  You see, she’s well into her 80s, and I see her at times when I’m driving home or on my way to the store. She loves to walk, and while she’s out walking, she carries a bag and picks up the trash she passes along the way.

She’s not saving lives or putting out fires, but she is making our neighborhood better. What’s more she’s been a great influence on me.  What a great idea, I thought, so while I’m out walking Charley, and just happen to have a bag, I pick up trash.

Maybe I’ll run into this lady one day on one of my walks and thank her for being an unsung hero and a positive influence.

In Buried Agendas, a book that is on $1.99 special through August 31 on all digital forums from Bell Bridge Books, my heroine is concerned about the environment as well and goes undercover. So, in effect, she’s a lot like my elderly neighbor.  I hope you’ll check it out!  http://donnellannbell.com/books/buried-agendas/

Night After Night

by Kathleen Eagle

Where do characters come from? From life, of course. From people. Even if the character is an animal, if it has thoughts, it’s a personification. Every writer’s characters come from people the writer has somehow experienced. Fiction is about the human experience—yes, even sci fi, even fantasy—fiction is about us. Writers find stories and characters in the world around them.

One of my most memorable characters is just a boy in THE NIGHT REMEMBERS, which was published in 1997. His father is black, his mother Lakota Sioux, and Tommy T—the nickname his father gave him—lives on the streets of Minneapolis. He’s resourceful, independent, witty, irrepressible, already a brilliant artist at the age of 12, when he “adopts” Angela, a woman who is out of her element and on the run. His older brother is a sad case, so Tommy T tries to look out for him, too. But Tommy T needs a hero, and he finds one in Jesse Brown Wolf, the enigmatic troubleshooter Tommy T calls Dark Dog.

Tommy T is one of my favorite characters, and he was inspired by a student from my early teaching days. Oliver was a terrific artist, a wonderful basketball player, a very smart young man. Years later—soon after we moved to the Minneapolis area—we ran into Oliver at an art show. It was so good to see someone from Standing Rock, the Lakota reservation where most of the Eagles live, where my husband and I met, where I taught high school for 17 years and where our 3 children were born. But here we were, out of our element, and here was Oliver, who was also glad to see people from back home, and who said, “I’m really doing good now, Mrs. Eagle.”

It wasn’t long after that meeting that Oliver died tragically. Heartbreakingly. Senselessly. Years later I wrote a story—not about him, but for him. And readers began to let me know that it wasn’t finished. Tommy T was one of their favorites, too, and he ought to be more than a secondary character. Tommy T had to grow up.  I knew who Tommy T was as a man, and I wrote NIGHT FALLS LIKE SILK.

Tommy T is now Thomas Warrior, a reclusive graphic novelist. He’s crazy successful and drop-dead handsome, but he’s also troubled by his past. He visits Angela, his adoptive mother, but only when Jesse isn’t home. He blames Jesse for his drug-addicted brother’s troubles. And now the characters in Thomas’s stories have begun to haunt him. They want him to go back to his roots, reclaim his heritage. Maybe that’s why he finds himself bidding on a set of century-old ledger drawings and feeling more than simply challenged by Cassandra Westbrook, the beautiful but outrageously privileged woman who outbids him. I believe NIGHT FALLS LIKE SILK is worthy of the irrepressible Tommy T as well as the irresistible Thomas Warrior.

Thank you, Oliver.

NIGHT FALLS LIKE SILK is only $1.99 through the 31st. Pick it up today: 

A Note from Wally Avett

I am grateful to Bell Bridge Books and my agent, Jeanie Loiacono, for getting my first two novels —MURDER IN CANEY FORK and LAST BIGFOOT IN DIXIE —  included in Amazon’s Holiday Gift Guide for the month of December.

My goal is to be a good storyteller so both novels, works of fiction, are solidly based on a number of true incidents.  I’m thankful the partnership of BBB and Amazon can enable me to reach a wider audience for my books.

My wife(52 years and counting) and I will welcome children and grandchildren into our mountain home over the holidays, where we always share good food and good stories.  Merry Christmas to all and a Happy and Blessed New Year!

Seasonal greetings from the Smoky Mountain farm of the Wally Avetts.

Last Bigfoot in Dixie by Wally Avett is on sale during the month of December for only $1.99! Click the cover below to purchase!

“As a longtime resident of North Carolina I felt while reading this book how authentic and real the characters came across. People in the southeastern part of the country do speak and act as portrayed in this story. I think just about every little town around the country has some strange and wild individuals that everybody in the town knows about and are suspicious of as well as the everyday common folks.

The story takes some unpredictable and sudden twists that keep you intrigued and anticipating what will happen next. A very well written book with some surprises along the way and a dramatic end fitting for a cast of characters such as these.”

Review posted by Robert on amazon.com