General Fiction / Women's Fiction
Date Published: March 1, 2012
In the summer of 1962, at a high school graduation party, Bessie Day Hardy is victim to a brutal crime. Fifty years later, the consequences of that horrific night will transition into unforeseen events that will shatter her serene and uncomplicated life.
General Fiction / Women's Fiction
Date Published: March 1, 2012
In the summer of 1962, at a high school graduation party, Bessie Day Hardy is victim to a brutal crime. Fifty years later, the consequences of that horrific night will transition into unforeseen events that will shatter her serene and uncomplicated life.
Excerpt
It was a day like any other. Days
have a sameness, even new, they offer little beyond weather changes and sudden
deaths.
“And how are you today?” Bessie
asked, showing a smile that age had not yet dulled. She’d always been cute
because of it. Sixty years ago, or more, she was the little girl whose cheeks
you pinched, and though she was old now, she still wore her hair in curls;
silver grey undulations that framed her face and brought out a blithe desire in
others to pinch where her dimples dipped, even to kiss her there unabashedly.
Grey looked up and nodded. “Same,”
he said.
The air was damp with April moisture
as Bessie Day Hardy wrapped her scarf closer to her neck and shivered. Air that
hung heavy like wet clothes caught flapping in the rain made it hard to
breathe. The scarf had been a gift in a white torn box, under red Santa Claus
wrapping, from the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Apostle Christmas party,
just last year. The lime green and
“We ever going to see the sun
again?” She sighed. A wind kicked around the corner and her body felt the
chill, enemy winds that carried the threat of sodden attacks to bones too
brittle to fight. Later, she would feel the ache and she would rub her muscles
more for the distraction than the release of pain.
“If we live long enough,” Grey said.
Bessie chuckled. Living long wasn’t
the blessing it used to be. Aging was in the way. Couldn’t leave a person
alone, had to show up and make her breath short, expose every damn vein in her
body and give her the unsightly imprint of impending death. Nobody wants to
look at mortality too closely and aging people carry its threat, vulnerably
apparent; the weight of its nearness is a
But the old were once young. Bessie
Day Hardy still carried the traces of adolescent giddiness in the creases of
her lips and her middle-aged ardor for Chauncey Hardy still glinted in her eyes
at the memory of his smooth hands in hers, and his fine soft hair against her
breast. His step was lively. She could hear it, sometimes, when the house was
quiet. Chauncey’s step on the stairs, in the kitchen, on the bedroom floor.
Damn house was quiet now, even her
cat walked too softly to hear.
Pharaoh's Star is Vera Jane Cook's most recent release. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater was Vera Jane’s second southern fiction novel and was a finalist in the ForeWord book of the Year Awards for 2012 and received a five star ForeWord Clarion review, as well as an Eric Hoffer honorable mention award for ebook fiction in 2013. Dancing Backward in Paradise also received a 5 Star Clarion ForeWord review and an Eric Hoffer notable new fiction award in 2006, as well as the Indie Excellence Award in 2006. Also by Vera Jane Cook: Lies a River Deep, Where the Wildflowers Grow, Marybeth, Hollister & Jane and Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem. Her next novel, Pleasant Day will be published in 2015 by Moonshine Cove Press.
Excerpt
It was a day like any other. Days
have a sameness, even new, they offer little beyond weather changes and sudden
deaths.
“And how are you today?” Bessie
asked, showing a smile that age had not yet dulled. She’d always been cute
because of it. Sixty years ago, or more, she was the little girl whose cheeks
you pinched, and though she was old now, she still wore her hair in curls;
silver grey undulations that framed her face and brought out a blithe desire in
others to pinch where her dimples dipped, even to kiss her there unabashedly.
Grey looked up and nodded. “Same,”
he said.
The air was damp with April moisture
as Bessie Day Hardy wrapped her scarf closer to her neck and shivered. Air that
hung heavy like wet clothes caught flapping in the rain made it hard to
breathe. The scarf had been a gift in a white torn box, under red Santa Claus
wrapping, from the Episcopal Church of Saint John the Apostle Christmas party,
just last year. The lime green and
caramel colored wool that she loved to feel
against her lips, an anonymous kindness from someone who had written: Bless you
and have a very Merry Christmas. Someone, she imagined with fresh white skin,
pearl teeth and eyes that sparkled blue in daylight, light as the sea, but
darkened with the night, turning cenereal behind the
shadows of dusk.
“We ever going to see the sun
again?” She sighed. A wind kicked around the corner and her body felt the
chill, enemy winds that carried the threat of sodden attacks to bones too
brittle to fight. Later, she would feel the ache and she would rub her muscles
more for the distraction than the release of pain.
“If we live long enough,” Grey said.
Bessie chuckled. Living long wasn’t
the blessing it used to be. Aging was in the way. Couldn’t leave a person
alone, had to show up and make her breath short, expose every damn vein in her
body and give her the unsightly imprint of impending death. Nobody wants to
look at mortality too closely and aging people carry its threat, vulnerably
apparent; the weight of its nearness is a
monster in the wings where heaven is
a nebulous and cracked mirror; don’t look into it, the young whisper: don’t
look yet.
But the old were once young. Bessie
Day Hardy still carried the traces of adolescent giddiness in the creases of
her lips and her middle-aged ardor for Chauncey Hardy still glinted in her eyes
at the memory of his smooth hands in hers, and his fine soft hair against her
breast. His step was lively. She could hear it, sometimes, when the house was
quiet. Chauncey’s step on the stairs, in the kitchen, on the bedroom floor.
Damn house was quiet now, even her
cat walked too softly to hear.
Pharaoh's Star is Vera Jane Cook's most recent release. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater was Vera Jane’s second southern fiction novel and was a finalist in the ForeWord book of the Year Awards for 2012 and received a five star ForeWord Clarion review, as well as an Eric Hoffer honorable mention award for ebook fiction in 2013. Dancing Backward in Paradise also received a 5 Star Clarion ForeWord review and an Eric Hoffer notable new fiction award in 2006, as well as the Indie Excellence Award in 2006. Also by Vera Jane Cook: Lies a River Deep, Where the Wildflowers Grow, Marybeth, Hollister & Jane and Annabel Horton, Lost Witch of Salem. Her next novel, Pleasant Day will be published in 2015 by Moonshine Cove Press.
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