One Year Anniversary of Little Tea’s Release!

Firefly Southern Fiction is running an e-book promotion this week, so if you haven’t read Little tea, for this week only, you can acquire Little Tea for .99 cents!

Here’s what you need to know about Little Tea:

Southern Culture … Old Friendships … Family Tragedy

One phone call from Renny to come home and “see about” the capricious Ava and Celia Wakefield decides to overlook her distressful past in the name of friendship.

For three reflective days at Renny’s lake house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, the three childhood friends reunite and examine life, love, marriage, and the ties that bind, even though Celia’s personal story has yet to be healed. When the past arrives at the lake house door in the form of her old boyfriend, Celia must revisit the life she’d tried to outrun.

As her idyllic coming of age alongside her best friend, Little Tea, on her family’s ancestral grounds in bucolic Como, Mississippi unfolds, Celia realizes there is no better place to accept her own story than in this circle of friends who have remained beside her throughout the years. Theirs is a friendship that can talk any life sorrow into a comic tragedy, and now that the racial divide in the Deep South has evolved, Celia wonders if friendship can triumph over history.

Women’s Fiction Momma 5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended Reviewed in the United States. Verified Purchase Claire Fullerton has stolen my heart with lyrical prose and a deep understanding of family, friendship, and how history shapes us in Little Tea. Through the story of Celia and Little Tea, two incredible young women who dare to defy convention, readers are quickly swept up in a story of a 1980’s South that is hanging on to its roots by a thread. At times, the story made me feel the deep friendships similar to those in The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, but at others the tension resting just below the surface of this original story kept me turning the pages to learn what would happen. Fullerton’s depth of understanding when it comes to the relationships between Celia’s and Little Tea’s family ties will break your heart, and then all at once make it sing. Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Southern Fiction at its BestReviewed in the United States. Southern fiction has always fascinated me for its evocation of that culture and language, the iconic characters and descriptions of environments. Claire Fullerton’s Little Tea more than satisfies a reader’s fascination with world she creates in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi. In the way we all try to look back to make sense of how we’ve gotten to where we are approaching middle age, three childhood BFF gather and move forward the narrative of their connections. Race, family ties, mental illness and ambition are the themes that bind and inform this story with conflict, history and ultimately love. A wonderful story beautifully told.

Little Tea Book Awards:

1st Place Outstanding Literary/General Fiction The Independent Authors Network

2nd place Book of the Year: The Independent Authors Network

Gold Medal Winner in Southern Fiction: Readers’ Favorite

1st Place in the Chanticleer Reviews Somerset Awards for Literary Fiction

The Pulpwood Queens August Book Club Selection

Deep South Magazine’s 2020 Summer Reading list

Featured in Mississippi Magazine

Finalist in the International Book Awards

Finalist in the 2020 Kindle Book Awards.

Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader rated it it was amazingI just click with author Claire Fullerton’s writing. I loved Little Tea just as much as Mourning Dove. She knows how to weave a southern tale.

Renny, Ava, and Celia have been friends since childhood, but they haven’t seen each other in ten years. They reunite at Renny’s lake house in Arkansas with much-needed time together commiserating and catching up.

Something happens that changes the tone of the weekend. Celia’s old boyfriend visits the lake house and causes the women to address the past.

Told in two timelines, the present and the 1980s, the story begins for these three friends. The deep south in which they grew up is not as pretty as it appears. Race and class issues are addressed with a profound but gentle hand.

Bottom line, I absolutely adored this story of friendship and how the remarkable bond of these strong women persevered over a long period of time.

Billy O’Callaghan rated it it was amazing “There’s a damp, verdant feel to Olive Branch, Mississippi, in the summertime. From the side of the road, everything is a chiaroscuro of overgrown, tangled green. Moss drips sultry from kudzu-covered oaks, shading twists of the road in canopies of diamond-dappled sunlight. The world there is flat, expansive, and quiet, evoking a mood both eerie and somber.” (from Little Tea)
Claire Fullerton has an enviably light touch, a lilting style that carries shades of Pat Conroy and tinges of Anne Tyler while managing to be be wonderfully of itself. Little Tea is a triumph – a meditation on friendship that’s gentle, emotive and, above all, wise. This is a writer who knows the heart, and the world around it, and most importantly, knows how to tell a good story.

You can get Little Tea’s E-book Here: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Tea-Claire-Fullerton-ebook/dp/B0817J667Y/ref=sr_1_1?crid=339KRYTUR5R75&keywords=little+tea+by+claire+fullerton&qid=1578767812&sprefix=Little+tea%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-1

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Dreaming in a Time of Dragons by G. Claire

Congratulations to Author/Artist G. Claire on Dreaming in a Time of Dragons!

Book Description:

-When is a dragon not a dragon?-When is a prince not a prince?-When do you burn evidence of your royalty and run, disguised as a boy? Eva finds her royal birthright has come at a high price, one that could cost her life. In the middle of dark intrigue, she must decide what to do: Trust the words of a mysterious traveler; or stay in the castle, hoping to restore the ruined Kingdom of Dunmoor. She knows one day she must face a danger sprung to life from the most frightening tale she knows . . . or forever be looking over her shoulder. Her choice means everything. For her. For the Kingdom. This story is stitched between the lines of supernatural realism, with medieval fairytale underpinnings.

I Love This Photograph of G. Claire at work!

May be an illustration of text that says '"A fable for the Annie Mcdonnell ages...' World of the Write Review మ Voa 'Dreaming in a Time of Dragons' G. Claire'

Born and raised in Florida, I have loved writing and drawing since I held the first crayon and decorated our living room wall. My parents quickly realized I would need large paper and supervision – and lots of both.

I grew up, married, and moved to Atlanta. There, working as an artist/illustrator, my work was published and bought by private and corporate collectors.

Later, during my career as an art teacher for middle-grade and high school students, I felt the tug to write. After going to seminars and devouring books on the craft of writing, I took the plunge and joined a writers’ group. Creating new worlds and characters to inhabit them is now my place of bliss.

* * *

Claire currently lives in the metro Atlanta area with her husband, and is working on Dreaming in a Time of Dragons, an epic adventure.

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Home – G. Claire (gclaire.com)

Reviews: I cannot remember my kids not I bring this enthralled in a book as much as we were this one. Ever. We struggled to stop reading every night and go to bed at a decent time, we couldn’t put it down. My daughter says she’s never envisioned anything in her imagination like she did while listening to me read this aloud. The author isn’t only an artist with images but also with words, invoking such beautiful imagery in the imagination. The good messages learned through this adventure are so beautifully and powerfully interwoven into the story. Learning to trust God, listen to intuition/the voice, bravery and forgiveness…there’s so much I could say but don’t want to spoil it. We are EAGERLY awaiting the next book and will probably reread this one while we wait. My daughter has been telling all her friends about it and how they HAVE to read it.

I loved this book! It was a great escape from all that’s going on in our world today. This book spans generations where pre-teen, teen, and adults alike will all enjoy this book! You can even read it to your children! It’s worth your time! Plus, I love the fact that the author also did the drawings and cover! She is multi-talented! Don’t hesitate to buy and read it!

I loved this book!! It was recommended to me, and now my niece is reading it. The chapters are short and story moves quickly. I liked the mystery and than the discovery of plot line. It was so clever. The drawings in it were also very well done.
I could easily see this been made into a movie…I really look forward to that!

May be a closeup — Daydreaming while holding colored pencils.
Thinking this might be a real place. . . Somewhere.

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Dreaming in a Time of Dragons is Available Where Books are Sold!

The Sound Between the Notes Release Day!

Congratulations to Barbara Linn Probst on the release of her second novel! The Sound Between the Notes releases today!

Book Description:

What if you had a second chance at the very thing you
thought you’d renounced forever? How steep a price would
you be willing to pay?
Susannah’s career as a pianist has been on hold for nearly
sixteen years, ever since her son was born. An adoptee who’s
never forgiven her birth mother for not putting her first,
Susannah vowed to put her own child first, no matter what.
And she did.
But now, suddenly, she has a chance to vault into that elite tier of “chosen” musicians. There’s just one
problem: somewhere along the way, she lost the power and the magic that used to be hers at the keyboard.
She needs to get them back. Now.
Her quest―what her husband calls her obsession―turns out to have a cost Susannah couldn’t have
anticipated. Even her hand betrays her, as Susannah learns that she has a progressive hereditary disease
that’s making her fingers cramp and curl―a curse waiting in her genes, legacy of a birth family that gave
her little else. As her now-or-never concert draws near, Susannah is catapulted back to memories she’s
never been able to purge―and forward, to choices she never thought she would have to make.
Told through the unique perspective of a musician, The Sound Between the Notes draws the reader deep

Like her award-winning debut, Queen of the Owls (six awards and counting), The Sound Between the Notes is about a woman’s search for identity, authenticity, and belonging—but this time, the story is told through the unique perspective of a musician.

The Sound Between the Notes has been called powerful, riveting, gorgeously written, “a breathtaking emotional journey,” and a compulsive page-turner that’s impossible to put down. In its highly-coveted starred review, given only to books “of remarkable merit,” Kirkus has called it “a tour de force steeped in suspense … a sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance.”

Praise for The Sound Between the Notes:

“The climax, on the night of her performance, is a tour de force steeped in suspense …
A sensitive, astute exploration of artistic passion, family, and perseverance.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“The Sound Between the Notes is so beautiful, so lyrical, so musical that it was hard to put
down…This is a wonderful story from a skillful writer, one that appeals strongly to the heart.
It features awesome characters, a twisty plot, and gorgeous writing.”

Readers Favorite, 5-star review
“In her second novel, Barbara Linn Probst delivers yet another powerful story, balancing
lyrical language with a skillfully paced plot to build a sensory-rich world that will delight those
who loved Queen of the Owls and win countless new readers. Offering a deep exploration of the
search for identity and connection, The Sound Between Notes reminds us
to embrace everything we are—and everything that’s made us who we are.”
Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA TODAY best-selling author of Perennials
“Beautifully told, The Sound Between the Notes, is the story of tragedy and triumph, of the push
and pull of family, of the responsibility we feel to ourselves and those we love.
Once I started the book, I couldn’t put it down until I reached the last, gorgeously written note.”
Loretta Nyhan, author of The Other Family and Amazon charts best-seller Digging In
Family ties can bind or blind us—even with relatives we’ve never met. In The Sound Between the
Notes, trails of music connect generations separated by adoption—while the same notes threaten
a family believed sewn with steel threads. In this spellbinding novel, Barbara Linn Probst
examines how the truth of love transcends genetics, even as strands of biology grip us. Once you
begin this story, suffused with the majesty of music and the reveries of creation,
the ‘gotta know’ will carry you all the way to the final note.
Randy Susan Meyers, International Bestselling Author of Waisted and
The Comfort of Lies
“As soaring as the music it so lovingly describes, poignantly human, and relatab

Barbara Linn Probst

Barbara Linn Probst is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her debut novel, Queen of the Owls, (April 2020) is the story of a woman’s search for wholeness, framed around the art and life of iconic American painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Queen of the Owls won the bronze medal for popular fiction from the Independent Publishers Association, placed first runner-up in general fiction for the Eric Hoffer Award, was short-listed for the First Horizon and the $2500 Grand Prize, and is currently a finalist for the Sarton Award for women’s fiction as well as the Somerset Award for literary and contemporary fiction. Barbara’s second novel The Sound Between the Notes, recipient of starred Kirkus Review for work “of remarkable merit,” launches in April 2021.

Barbara has a PhD in clinical social work and blogs for several award-winning sites for writers. To learn more about Barbara and her work, visit barbaralinnprobst.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Instagram.

To order The Sound Between the Notes, please go to Amazon or the links on her website

Author Website here:

Home

Available Now:

I’m with Barbara Linn Probst at The Pulpwood Queens Girlfriend Weekend in Jefferson, Texas! The biggest book club convention in the world!

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Book Release: Dust by Eva Marie Everson!

Congratulations to Eva Marie Everson on the launch of her novel, Dust!

Dust

Can an ordinary life leave an extraordinary legacy?

In 1977, when nineteen-year-old Allison Middleton receives a proposal of marriage from Westley Houser, she eagerly accepts, having no idea the secret Westley carries—a secret that will change Allison’s life forever. But Allison rises to the challenge of raising Westley’s toddling daughter as though she were her own.

Over the course of their lifetime together, Allison, Westley, and Michelle form the strong bond of family. As Allison struggles with infertility and finding her way during a time of great change for women, others—some she knows and others whom she never meets—brush and weave against the fabric of her life, leaving her with more questions than answers.

From teen bride to grandmother, Allison’s life chronicles the ups and downs of an ordinary woman’s life to examine the value of what we all leave behind.

~~~~~~~

From the first word to the last I was enthralled with this story. Everson’s love-story-through-time will appeal to every reader who cheers when love triumphs. This is Everson at her best.

–Rachel Hauck, New York Times bestselling author of The Wedding Dress

Order Here:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

ChristianBook.com

Iron Stream Media

I had the great pleasure of reading the advance review copy of Dust and highly recommend it! Beautiful, lyrical writing, a woman’s story and then some including life and love and marriage and the choices we make in pursuit of a meaningful, fulfilling future. It’s all here, in this lovely saga. Fans of women’s fiction, contemporary fiction, and literary fiction will relish this story!

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Launch Party on Facebook!

Eva Marie Everson is a multiple-award winning author and speaker who hails from the picturesque Southern town of Sylvania, Georgia. She is president of Word Weavers International, director of Florida Christian Writers Conference, Managing Editor at Firefly Southern Fiction, and enjoys coaching new authors through her company, Pen in Hand. She is an avid photographer who enjoys turning her photos into inspiring memes for you to share (with proper attribution). Eva Marie and her husband make their home in Central Florida. They are the parents of three fabulous children who have blessed them with the world’s greatest grandchildren.

Readers say of Dust:

Allison meets Westley as a callow girl and enters their marriage on the wings of starry-eyed optimism. It is the 1970s, and Westley has kept a secret that impacts the years to come. In a web of memorable characters who intersect profoundly, Dust is a novel of exquisite breadth and width, a soulful story of a woman coming into her own that shows us it is the seemingly ordinary life that is, in fact, extraordinary.–Claire Fullerton, award-winning author of Little Tea

Author Eva Marie Everson’s characters in Dust are flawed, their choices, both good and bad, intersecting and influencing each other’s lives. Everson’s layered Southern family drama reveals the complexities of relationships and the unexpected and sometimes painful consequences of our choices. While we might regret how what we say and do affects others, with every turn of the page Everson reminds readers of a vital truth: life doesn’t have to be perfect to be good.

–Beth K. Vogt, Christy Award-winning author of the Thatcher Sisters series

Eva Marie Everson’s novel Dust is a poignant story about family, not simply family defined by DNA but the struggles, joys, and disappointments that bond us. These characters face challenges that ultimately determine who we really are and how we love one another.–Christa Allen, award-winning author of Since You’ve Been Gone

Everson, at her page-turning, keep-you-reading-all-night best brings Dust to the world. She has penned a novel that intrigues, shell shocks, and keeps you guessing. She peels back and exposes the beauty and tragedy of everyday life. She draws in-depth psychological characters that pop in and out, leaving you reading until wee hours seeking them.
–Merilyn Howton Marriott, MS, LPC, award-winning author of The Children of Main Street

“Fans of Eva Marie Everson will rush to purchase her latest novel, Dust. A complex story line moves the story at a rapid pace, which makes readers fall headlong into this page-turner. The characters remain with you long after the ending and you will find yourself thinking about them long after the final page. In Dust, Everson secures her place at the top of women’s fiction.
–Renea Winchester, award-winning author of Outbound Train

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Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan

“Surviving Savannah is an epic novel that explores the metal of human spirit in crisis. It is an expertly told, fascinating story that runs fathoms deep on multiple levels.”

Fate, chance, choices, and destiny are mere concepts until an inspired author comes along and depicts the essence of each through the power of story. Patti Callahan has done just that in her widely anticipated Surviving Savannah. The New York Times bestselling author sets historical fiction’s stage in a mahogany paneled library before a roaring fire, where six- and eight-year-old sisters, Everly and Allyn Winthrop, sit at their pipe-smoking grandfather’s knee, while he spins yet another fantastic version of the ill-fated, steamship, Pulaski. Haunting imagery of the Pulaski looms in the family’s multi-generational, Georgian style house on Savannah’s historic Jones Street: “Above the fireplace hung an oil painting of a lustrous steamship with its sails spread wide and its wheels churning the water into whipped foam, the sky clear and bluer than the sea as human figures on the deck regarded the vast sea.”

Read My Full Review Here: a book review by Claire Fullerton: Surviving Savannah (nyjournalofbooks.com)

It was called “The Titanic of the South.” The luxury steamship sank in 1838 with Savannah’s elite on board; through time, their fates were forgotten—until the wreck was found, and now their story is finally being told in this breathtaking novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis.

Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of sixteen novels and podcast host. She is the recipient of The Christy Award — A 2019 Winner “Book of the Year”; The Harper Lee Distinguished Writer of the Year for 2020 and the Alabama Library Association Book of the Year for 2019. She is the co-host and co-creator of the popular weekly online Friends and Fiction live web show and podcast. A full-time author and mother of three children, she now resides in both Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband.

Home | Patti Callahan Henry l New York Times Bestselling Author

New Podcast Series: The Untold Story Behind Surviving Savannah (patticallahanhenry.com)

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The Sweet Taste of Muscadines by Pamela Terry.

Image of The Sweet Taste of Muscadines: A Novel

“Lovely, lyrical, and often profound, The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is women’s fiction at its finest and then something more. . . . the search for truth on the backdrops of Wesleyan and a remote island off the coast of Scotland is breathtakingly visceral, in an emotionally evocative story with a strong sense of place.”

Southern tradition, cultural nuance, and unresolved childhood memories lie at the foundation of this engaging story, which begins with a Southern funeral. Narrator Lila Breedlove is a transplanted Southerner now living as a young widow on Wigeon Island, off the coast of Maine. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, she lives quietly and successfully seaside, designing and creating woven garments, an occupation metaphoric of The Sweet Taste of Muscadines’ intricately woven tale.

See Full Review here:

a book review by Claire Fullerton: The Sweet Taste of Muscadines: A Novel (nyjournalofbooks.com)

The Author’s Website: Pamela Terry / Author

Pamela Terry’s Blogspot is here: From The House of Edward

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The Last Blue by Isla Morley

My Review: 5 Stars!

From the first page, you know you’re reading the words of a masterful storyteller. Isla Morley’s The Last Blue is written from a unique perspective on the Blue’s of Kentucky: a small, secluded culture of people only recently come to light in wider awareness. What is different about this compelling book is that it is a profoundly riveting love story told from many angels, addressing family loyalty, love of one’s homeland, and the triumph of romantic love against all odds. The characters in this story are fully realized to the point where the reader intuits their plausible hubris. The main character’s drive towards the pursuit of happiness chafes against small-minded culture, social mores, and multiple signs of the times. In The Last Blue, we are given a beautiful, unique soul in young Jubilee, who has a genetic skin aberration that’s misunderstood and subjects her to being a community outcast in a small, mountainous region. Superstition, racism, and the worst in human nature confront her, yet through it all, nothing affects the spirit of this child of nature, who has a gift for healing birds. When photographer Havens discovers Jubilee by a creek in the sylvan woods, he is awestruck and captivated, and the high-stakes drama becomes something deeply personal along an unpredictable path where love conquers all. Engrossing, great world-building, compassionate, and poignant, The Last Blue is a memorable, ageless story with a timely message and a satisfying ending.

Book Description:

In this luminous narrative inspired by the fascinating real case of “the Blue People of Kentucky,” Isla Morley probes questions of identity, love, and family in her breathtaking new novel.

In 1937, there are recesses in Appalachia no outsiders have ever explored. Two government-sponsored documentarians from Cincinnati, Ohio—a writer and photographer—are dispatched to penetrate this wilderness and record what they find for President Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. For photographer Clay Havens, the assignment is his last chance to reboot his flagging career. So when he and his journalist partner are warned away from the remote Spooklight Holler outside of town, they set off eagerly in search of a headline story. What they see will haunt Clay into his old age: Jubilee Buford, a woman whose skin is a shocking and unmistakable shade of blue. From this happenstance meeting between a woman isolated from society and persecuted her whole life, and a man accustomed to keeping himself at lens distance from others, comes a mesmerizing story in which the dark shades of betrayal, prejudice, fear, and guilt, are refracted along with the incandescent hues of passion and courage. Panning across the rich rural aesthetic of eastern Kentucky, The Last Blue is a captivating love story and an intimate portrait of what it is like to be truly one of a kind.

About the Author:

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. During the country’s State of Emergency, she graduated from Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth with a degree in English Literature.

By 1994 she was one of the youngest magazine editors in South Africa, but left career, country and kin when she married an American and moved to California. For more than a decade she pursued a career in non-profit work, focusing on the needs of women and children.

Her debut novel, Come Sunday, won the Janet Heidinger Prize for fiction and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize. It has been translated into seven languages. Her novel, Above was an IndieNext Pick, a Best Buzz Book and a Publishers Weekly Best New Book. The Last Blue is her third novel.

She has lived in some of the most culturally diverse places of the world, including Johannesburg, London and Honolulu. Now in Los Angeles, she shares a home with her husband, daughter, three cats and five tortoises.

Isla Morley’s Website: Media (islamorley.com)

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Release Day: A Dance in Donegal by Jennifer Deibel!

A Dance in Donegal
Coming Febrauary 2, 2021 from Revell

All of her life, Irish-American Moira Doherty has relished her Irish mother’s descriptions of her homeland. When her mother dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1920, Moira accepts the challenge to fulfill her mother’s wish that she become the teacher in Ballymann, the homeland village in Donegal, Ireland.

After an arduous voyage, Moira arrives to a new home and a new job in an ancient country. Though a few locals offer a warm welcome, others are distanced by superstition and suspicion. Rumors about Moira’s mother are unspoken in her presence, but threaten to derail everything she’s journeyed to Ballymann to do. Moira must rely on the kindness of a handful of friends—and the strength of an unsettlingly handsome thatcher who keeps popping up unannounced. While Moira learns to trust Sean and his intentions, she struggles to navigate a life she’d never dreamed of . . . but perhaps was meant to live.

About The Author:

I’m your typical American mom, working, raising kids, and loving my hubby…I’ve just been blessed to do some of it in Vienna, Austria and the west of Ireland. However, after a decade of life overseas, we have settled back in America–in sunny Arizona!

I currently teach middle school English, and when I’m not working on school things, I’m spending time with my incredible family–my husband Seth and our 3 awesome kids–and writing.

My debut novel, A Dance in Donegal, releases from Revell February 2, 2021. You can read more about that here.

I write stories that explore home through the lens of faith, family, and culture–with the beauty and depth of Ireland coloring much of it.

ADD A DANCE IN DONEGAL ON GOODREADS!

Reader Review:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book: Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2021

A Dance in Donegal by Jennifer Deibel is a great historical fiction that has a wonderful plot, romance, a stunning backdrop with a dash of mystery thrown in to create an enjoyable read.

The book starts off in Boston during the 1920s where we meet Moira whom has just graduated from school to become a teacher. She ends up on a quest to her mother’s hometown village of Ballymann in Donegal, Ireland. Here Moira encounters so many new things: a different culture, societal culture and customs, the local inhabitants (some more welcoming then others), mystery surrounding her mother’s past presence here that is shrouded in questions and whispers, and possibly even love.

I love the awakening of Moira throughout this novel. Learning her profession, making friends, finding a partner/romance, facing questions of where she came from, who that makes her, what is her purpose in life, where does she fit in, and where is her home. I really enjoyed her finding herself, her place, path, and solidifying her faith. I also loved how the author was able to draw the reader in with the MC on her journey to the end of the novel. I really wanted to see how it would all wrap up.

I enjoyed the complex and rich array of characters. They were well thought out and added perfectly to my favorite part of the novel:

The location: Ireland. It was wonderful to be able to read and visualize such a beautiful place. Taking a peak into this rich culture, the people, customs, religion, daily lives, the food (oh my the food!), and the stunning landscapes at times took my breath away. The inclusion of the wonderful Irish Gaelic really added to the story as well. It is such a beautiful language. The author has a real talent in being able to give the reader a fully immersive experience to make one feel as if they were actually there right along with her, experiencing it all for the first time together. I absolutely loved imagining life within the villages of this gorgeous country within the early part of the 20th century. I learned so much about this time period there just from reading this novel.

An excellent book that has me yearning to travel to Ireland myself to find out where my own Grandmother is from.

Books

Order A Dance in Donegal here:

Baker Book House
ChristianBook
Barnes and Noble
Target
Amazon
Books-A-Million
IndieBound
Walmart

Book Review: The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington

“The Fortunate Ones is a fathoms-deep exploration of love, loyalty, and the ties that bind, written masterfully from all angles. It’s a laser-sharp look at the underbelly of power and privilege’s repercussions as told through the power of story.”

A gorgeous, deep probing treatise on the myriad manifestations of love, envy, privilege, and longing, The Fortunate Ones by Ed Tarkington begins by holding a mirror to coming of age concerns in light of two young men from disparate backgrounds who overlap in a setting where all that glitters isn’t gold.

Full review here! a book review by Claire Fullerton: The Fortunate Ones (nyjournalofbooks.com)

Ed Tarkington’s debut novel Only Love Can Break Your Heart was an ABA Indies Introduce selection, an Indie Next pick, a Book of the Month Club Main Selection, and a Southern Independent Booksellers Association bestseller. A regular contributor to Chapter16.org, his articles, essays, and stories have appeared in a variety of publications including the Nashville Scene, Memphis Commercial Appeal, Knoxville News-Sentinel, and Lit Hub. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Praise for The Fortunate Ones

“Ed Tarkington’s wonderful second novel, The Fortunate Ones, feels like a fresh and remarkably sure-footed take on The Great Gatsby, examining the complex costs of attempting to transcend or exchange your given class for a more gilded one…As a novelist, he is the real deal. I can’t wait to see this story reach a wide audience, and to see what he does next. ”

— Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife and Love and Ruin

“To the great literature of anointment, of the young person plucked from obscurity and given a place at the glittering table, we can now add Ed Tarkington’s lovely novel of a young man mystified by his good fortune until the reasons behind it are revealed and the cost is extracted. A beautiful read.“

— Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier

“Ed Tarkington perfectly captures the heady, conflicted emotions that come with proximity to privilege — both the irresistible longing and the heartbreaking disillusionment. I’m recommending The Fortunate Ones to every book club I know.”

— Mary Laura Philpott, author of I Miss You When I Blink

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

Nick by Michael Farris Smith

Happy Release day to author Michael Farris Smith! I enjoyed Nick immensely!

“The story of Nick is the story of one lost soul on automatic pilot written in four compelling parts that dovetail to weave a psychic template of a WWI survivor. Its impact is profound, its resonance subterranean.”

It will take hours to wipe the awestruck look off your face after reading the last line of the anxiously anticipated Nick by Michael Farris Smith, a writer with a wildly enthusiastic fan base that fancies itself insiders to Farris Smith’s gritty esotericism. You’re cool if you follow this Oxford, Mississippi author. You are in-crowd if you’re hip to this writer who seemed to inherit the tool kit of the great Southern writers before him. Referred to as MFS by those who take his work personally because his stories do the talking for a certain strata of a particular region, in some ways Farris Smith’s clear, direct, and economic voice is an acquired taste even as his career prospers. But the publication of Nick will change all that, and wider readership will understand the attraction of this fearless writer who transcends literary limits and boundaries and plays by his own rules.

Full Review in the New York Journal of Books: a book review by Claire Fullerton: Nick (nyjournalofbooks.com)

Michael Farris Smith

Michael Farris Smith is the author of Blackwood, The Fighter, Desperation Road, Rivers, and The Hands of Strangers. His novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire, Southern Living, Book Riot, and numerous others, and have been named Indie Next List, Barnes & Noble Discover, and Amazon Best of the Month selections. He has been a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+michael+farris+smith+Nick&docid=608044713954378582&mid=DAE872EFAD0ACFB75D50DAE872EFAD0ACFB75D50&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

The Author Reads from Nick! Go to YouTube: Michael Farris Smith: Nick

AUTHOR INTERVIEWS

How ‘Gatsby’ Went From A Moldering Flop To A Great American Novel

On how timely Gatsby feels today

When I sat down to give it a revision last year, the thing that really struck me and surprised me about it was how timely the novel felt. … I mean, it’s a country that was coming off World War I. It was a country in a great state of transition — which is what we are fully immersed in right now, the greedy and the rich getting richer. … [There are] characters in the novel who are coming off the war, who are very disillusioned with their own country. And it’s a country coming off a pandemic. I mean, I was just blown away like how strangely timely the novel feels now compared to, you know, 100 years ago. And if this novel would have been published in 2015, that would have all been lost. But here we are now.

https://linktr.ee/cffullerton

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Dust

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“Ed Tarkington perfectly captures the heady, conflicted emotions that come with proximity to privilege — both the irresistible longing and the heartbreaking disillusionment. I’m recommending The Fortunate Ones to every book club I know.”

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Michael Farris Smith

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