Moccasin Trace
by Hawk
MacKinney
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
…
it was about the land…a tale of love and loss and hope…
“The
most engaging and brilliantly crafted historical work since Margaret Mitchell’s
great classic.”
Barbara
Casey
Author,
The Gospel According to Prissy
Hamilton
Ingram looked out across the fertile Georgia bottomlands that were Moccasin
Hollows, seeing holdings it had taken generations of Ingrams to build. No drop of slave sweat ever shed in its
creation. It was about the land…his trust,
his duty to preserve it for the generation of Ingrams to come…
It
is July of 1859, a month of sweltering dog days and feverish emotional
bombast. Life is good for widower
Rundell Ingram and his Hazel-eyed, roan-haired son, Hamilton. Between the two of them, they take care of
Moccasin Hollows, their rustic dogtrot ancestral home, a sprawling non-slave
plantation in the rolling farming country outside Queensborough Towne in east
Georgia. Adjoining Ingram lands is
Wisteria Bend, the vast slave-holding plantation of Andrew and Corinthia Greer,
their daughter Sarah, and son Benjamin.
Both
families share generations of long-accepted traditions, and childhood playmates
are no longer children. The rangy,
even-tempered Norman-Scottish young Hamilton is smitten with Sarah, who has
become an enticing capricious beauty—the young lovers more in love with each
passing day, and only pleasant times ahead of them.
But
a blood tide of war is sweeping across the South, a tide that might be
impossible to stand before.
EXCERPT:
He took
special care to have quiet times for Sarah, 'specially since night before last.
He got real excited when she told him she might be with child again. She hadn't been sleeping well, often wanted
him to rub her aching back. Now he knew
why.
Threadbare
clothes and unshorn hair gave Hamilton Bothington Graeme Ingram the look of a
run-down, unkempt derelict instead of heir to one of the largest non-slave
plantations in Saint George Parish. He
ducked under what was left of the split-rail fence with its crooked corner
post. Rails and most posts had long gone
up in the smoke of hoards of campfires.
"Step
wide." He reached back to help her
through. "I don't want the mother
of our children to step on a canebrake rattler catchin' sun on this fine
day."
"Lord
have mercy." Sarah clutched her
bonnet in her hand so as not to get it snagged in the coiled tangle of
wire. "I suppose it's up to me to
get used to your hoverin' over me again."
"Yep,"
he grinned. "Reckon my favorite
sweetheart will have to do just that."
"Your
favorite sweetheart?" She giggled,
wrinkled her nose at him. "Just
listen to you and your Ingram fiddle-faddled talk."
He grinned as
she brushed back strands of the golden hair Hamilton loved to run his fingers
through. She gathered her mended skirt,
slipped her hand into his, and quickly stepped wide over the fallen post.
"C'mon..." Her voice lilted soft, and she squeezed her
grip on his hand. "Let's
hurry."
Her singular
tenderness refused to let the devastation around them blight their few
alone-times. In the spoliation around
them, such times when they managed to make it just the two of them held a
more-than-special meaning.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
With
postgraduate degrees and faculty appointments in several medical universities,
Hawk MacKinney has taught graduate courses in both the United States and
Jerusalem. In addition to professional articles and texts on chordate
neuroembryology, Hawk has authored several works of fiction.
Hawk
began writing mysteries for his school newspaper. His works of fiction,
historical love stories, science fiction and mystery-thrillers are not
genre-centered, but plot-character driven, and reflect his southwest upbringing
in Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma. Moccasin Trace, a historical novel nominated
for the prestigious Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction
and the Writers Notes Book Award, details the family bloodlines of his serial
protagonist in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series… murder and mayhem with a touch
of romance. Vault of Secrets, the first book in the Ingram series, was followed
by Nymrod Resurrection, Blood and Gold, and The Lady of Corpsewood Manor. All
have received national attention. Hawk’s
latest release in the Ingram series is due out this fall with another
mystery-thriller work out in 2014. The Bleikovat Event, the first volume in The
Cairns of Sainctuarie science fiction series, was released in 2012.
"Without
question, Hawk is one of the most gifted and imaginative writers I have had the
pleasure to represent. His reading fans have something special to look forward
to in the Craige Ingram Mystery Series. Intrigue, murder, deception and
conspiracy--these are the things that take Hawk's main character, Navy
ex-SEAL/part-time private investigator Craige Ingram, from his South Carolina
ancestral home of Moccasin Hollow to the dirty backrooms of the nation's
capital and across Europe and the Middle East."
Barbara
Casey, President
Barbara
Casey Literary Agency
www.hawkmackinney.net
www.amazon.com
www.barnesandnoble.com
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteWhat has been the biggest challenge to your writing career to date?
ReplyDeleteandralynn7 AT gmail DOt com
There's not enough hrs/days/months to write all the stores swimming thru my fantasies -
ReplyDeleteHmK
Interesting book
ReplyDeletebn100candg at hotmail dot com
bn100
ReplyDeleteThank U -
Hawk MacK