Summertime Sale: Red Clay and Roses

I have been planning a summertime sale of Red Clay and Roses for over a month now and wanted it to coincide with a promotional I am doing with Ereader News Today. It took a while to reschedule with them because I was out of town the last time they approved a promo and missed their email, so it was cancelled.

The sale officially begins tomorrow, but the sale price has already been set! Red Clay and Roses is on sale for 99 cents! This sale will last a week, but ENT gets a cut on the first two days of the sale. With a 35% royalty and ENT getting a cut, I don’t plan on buying a new car with the proceeds, or anything like that, but I did want to let you know about the sale in case you have an interest in picking up the book.

Blurb:

A fictionalized true story of life in the Deep South during the time of Jim Crow Law, and before Roe vs. Wade. Women were supposed to keep quiet and serve, abortion was illegal, adoption difficult, and racism rampant. The discovery of an old ledger opens a window into the dynamics of the 1950s-60s.

Unspoken secrets are shared between Beatrice, The Good Doctor’s wife, and Moses Grier, their black handyman. The Grier’s daughter, Althea, suffers a tragedy that leaves her family silent and mournful. Her brother, Nathan, a medical student, looks for answers from a community that is deaf, blind, and dumb.

A summer romance between Nathan and Sybil, an independent, high-spirited, white woman, leaves more unresolved. Nathan is thrust into the center of the Civil Rights Movement. Sybil is torn between living the mundane life of her peers, or a life that involves fastening herself to a taboo relationship. Witness social progress through the eyes of those who lived it!

Red Clay and Roses is a roman à clef . Pronounced romanaclay, Wikipedia defines a roman à clef as, “A novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction.” The technique was used historically in writing about controversial topics and/or reporting inside information of scandals without giving rise to charges of libel; the opportunity to turn the tale the way the author would like it to have gone; the opportunity to portray personal, autobiographical experiences without having to expose the author as the subject; avoiding self-incrimination or incrimination of others that could be used as evidence in civil, criminal, or disciplinary proceedings; and the settling of scores.

Being a fictionalized true story based on personal family member’s lives, I promised that I would not use real photographs to portray my characters. Sybil is a cousin in real life. For giggles and grins, I once did a casting call for the movie using popular actors and actresses today.

I got on the internet a while ago and tried to find a 1950s entertainer that I thought best represented Sybil Hamilton, a main character in the book, and came up with Peggy Lee. Her hair styles remind me of the images I had of young Sybil in my mind as I wrote the story.

Peggy Lee was a an actress/singer and her work includes the soundtrack for Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp.” All of her recordings are bluesy and jazzy, like the music of the era I listened to while I was writing. Enjoy.