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
Bessie's head jerked around, "...them gun shots."
A stooped-over Sarah looked up, "What?"
"Gun shots..."
Bessie put down the box of jars and headed toward the cellar door. "From the direction where the men
be. We gittin' upstairs, an' gittin'
now."
Sarah's heart pounded as they came up out of the cellar and
looked in the direction of more shots.
"Come on..."
Bessie hurried into the pantry where she reached down the powder horn
from the top shelf, then the rifle and pistols. "Git 'em ready with all
that shootin'. Till we know different,
we make sure two-legged low-downs don't sneak to the house."
Sarah rushed to the window and murmured,
"Hamilton..." She feared for him, for their child, for all of
them. "Surely you don't suppose
it's Federals?"
"Might be better if'n it is 'stead of what else be
skulkin' in them woods. Stay away from
the winder, an' finish rammin' this powder."
Sarah poured the ball and powder firm, rammed it, pulled the
rammer out, and whispered, "Bessie listen...birds stopped singing."
"Except that cawin' crow seein' somethin' what don't
belong."
Sarah took another quick peek, "There's several horses,
but I don't see any riders. Mules are
still hitched. I don't see anyone at the
plow, but there's men on among the trees."
"You watch the front door." Bessie snugged the pistol in her apron
pocket. "I cover the back. Anybody tries comin' through the dogtrot door
or through the parlor, we back into here, keep 'em from circlin' us."
"What about Papa Rundell?" Sarah's stomach was queasy.
"He keep his rifle ready. Anyone bust in his room be dead 'fore they
twitch a hair."
With a crash the kitchen door flew open. Sarah brought her rifle up and fired, the
shot splintering door and jamb. The
sound thundered through the house.
Bessie's rifle steadied dead-on.
The silhouetted head and shoulders ducked into a hunch and
Hamilton yelled, "Sarah!" His
hand smeared at stinging blood-speckled splinters of wood along his cheek.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
GIVEAWAY
$25 Amazon GC
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteJulia BookReader - Thank U for posting & thank 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