FREE KINDLE BOOK: The Dream Bucket and Manuela Blayne

The Dream Bucket and Manuela Blayne, combined in one e-book, are free on Amazon June 26-June 30, 2023.

The Dream Bucket shows life in a simpler time–1909–and yet the Cameron family’s problems resemble those we face today when things go wrong. This novel, told from two points of view, portrays mystery, romance, grief, and courage.

  Special Recognition 

International Writers Alive Contest Winner

Audio Creation Exchange Stipend Recipient

(ACX)

Qualified Independently Published Status for Author

(QIP, ACFW)

Living in a Shack

As long as she can remember, Trudy Cameron has adored Papa, who calls her his little princess. In the night when the moon is going down, she hears her father abuse her mother in the next bedroom. All Zoe, her mother, wants to know is where he has stored the family fortune.  Trudy realizes William Cameron is less of a person than she had believed. She wishes he would die. While she is at school, the family home burns, and Papa dies in the fire.

Her mother takes Trudy and her brother Billy Jack (Will) to live in a sharecroppers’ shack, and they struggle to survive with no money. Predators, both human and animal, threaten the family. A gentle neighbor stands by. Kind people from the town of Taylorsburg help as much as Zoe will allow.

Manuela Blayne is the sequel to The Dream Bucket.

·        Tale of self-discovery, emotional, expressive, innocence versus awakening, important (from Reader’s Favorite).

·        Story of racial separation in the early twentieth century, when Black lives didn’t matter.

·        Clean and sparse but loaded with meaning.

·        Depiction of hope and love.

·        White girl’s attempt to understand how it feels to be Black.

·        Realistic portrayal of Southern poverty.

                                 

 Kirkus Reviews

The inherent tension between Trudy’s cheery worldview and Manuela’s family’s troubled lives makes for a compelling read. 

The Dream Bucket and Manuela Blayne

My Home Town -- Those Funny Names of Mississippi Places in Our Neck of the Woods

Join this Facebook group if your heart is in Taylorsville, Mississippi (Smith County)

We natives of Taylorsville (Smith County, Mississippi) have our pride about our town's name. Even though our town is small, we at least have a better name than some of the surrounding communities can claim.

To the east of the town of our origin is Soso. This name was given to that community 125 years ago by Jim Eaton, a Taylorsville post office worker, who thought the community was so so. Those dear people have kept the name and made the best of it. It has become distinctive. The Soso residents received a lemon of a name from a Taylorsvillian and made lemonade out of it.

To the southeast is Sullivan's Hollow, named after Wild Bill Sullivan. The legendary rowdy ways of that community have become internationally famous. We Taylorsvillians cannot help adding the sin of envy over their name to the pride we feel for our own name.

South of us is Hot Coffee, Mississippi. This community supposedly had an inn there that sold hot coffee. Most people have never heard of Taylorsville, but they know about Hot Coffee. Taylorsville is much more significant than Hot Coffee. It's too bad! We have such a respectable name but people don't know about us.

Part of the problem is that there's nothing very original or unique about the name of our town. We share the name with places in Utah, California, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, and Iowa. In fact, there are two towns named Taylorsville, Mississippi.

We pronounce the word by accenting the first syllable with no emphasis on the "ville." We are very boastful of the name.

Recently I read that it is believed that the original town of Taylorsville was called "Bullace" back in 1898 when a road from Jackson to Laurel was built. How humiliating to have had such an undignified beginning name!

Sources:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3291/i s_2_23/ai_n29132353/

http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?loc Index=285673

http://www.mize.town.ms.gov/history.html

http://www.mapquest.com/directions

Growing Up Near Hot Coffee, Mississippi

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