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
Thanks for hosting!. Readers: Enter to win a $25 Amazon GC – a Rafflecopter giveaway
ReplyDeleteThank U for hosting the Mocassin Trace virtual tour with its mix of genre(s), characters and a big flavor of romance. It is much appreciated. For readers who follow the Craige Ingram Mystery Series, the Southron tale of Moccasin Trace provides the Scottish-Normandr bloodlines and background of protagonist SEAL/PI Craige Ingram in the thriller-mysteries.
ReplyDeleteHawk MacKinney
www.hawkmackinney.net