BLAST, BLITZ, PROMOS, REVEALS, & TOURS . . . : SPOTLIGHT w/EXCERPT - HISTORICAL FICTION

Child of Love and Water

by D.K. Marley

Publication Date: October 19, 2018
The White Rabbit Publishing
eBook; 291 Pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

BLURB
The year is 1722. A child is born on the isolated island of Ospo off the Georgia coast. In the midst of General Oglethorpe's vision for this new land, and the emerging townships of Frederica and Savannah, four lives entwine together on this island like the woven fronds in a sea-grass basket - the orphaned Irish girl born free of hate or prejudice, a war-ravaged British soldier seeking forgiveness and absolution, a runaway Gullah slave girl desperate for a word of kindness on the wind, and a Creek Indian warrior searching for answers about this intrusion onto his homeland. What they learn from this wild innocent girl, and from each other, will change their lives forever.

A new birth, a new country, and the elements - Water, Wind, Fire, and Earth - entwine to teach one thing: Love conquers all. Love sees beyond borders. There is no ignorance in love.

Available on Amazon

EXCERPT

Muirin woke up to the reassuring sounds of the island, the constant rushing of the waves to the shore, the soft pelting of raindrops through the leaves and the music of the crickets and cicadas in the pine trees. Everything else remained quiet. The seagulls, the sand crabs, the squirrels, the deer – all tucked safe in their forest or beach beds waiting for the storm to pass. Across the air, a single bullfrog's vibrato drifted through the rain and she reached her fingers to pull her mother's blanket across the pallet, squeezing the folds to her chest. No one ever told her what loneliness felt like, not even her mother taught her that lesson. But this morning, an ache filled her heart and her body shook with tears.

She wiped the trails on her cheeks with the back of her hand and sat up, gazing over at the spot where her mother used to sleep. A chill raced up her arm and the last words she thought of before she fell asleep filtered back into her mind.

What is there to fear?

She looked up to the window, bending her ear to the distant sound of the frog.

“Alone... alone... alone...” he croaked.

Muirin wrapped herself in the quilt and walked out into the misty rain. She soaked in the scene around her, the blackened coals in the fire pit swimming in a small ashy puddle, brave wet ants swarming the leftover soggy corn cakes in the iron pot, and two toppled over wooden cups laying on the ground. Her cup and her mother's cup, now empty. She gazed over to the vegetable bag crumpled on the ground after falling from its hook on the side of the hut. Three bunches of carrots, some with small teeth marks and others eaten to the green, slouched over the opening of the bag. Her stomach growled but she did not feel like eating.

She wandered away from the haven of the hut, through the palmettos, and out to the dunes. Walking along the wet sand, her feet scrubbed through a a bed of sand spurs and she stumbled to a log. The tears flowed again as she sat there in the rain, removing each tiny spur from the bottom of her foot. The last one she pried off, tossing the needle-like enemy across the path with a frustrated cry.

Sitting there for a moment as the rain soaked the quilt and dripped from her eyelashes, her gaze rested upon a family of marsh hares peeking out from under a bramble bush. They nestled close to each other, their ears alert and eyes bright, despite their soggy paws and coat. Muirin feigned a small smile, pulled the water-weighted quilt around her shoulders and headed on toward the beach.

She reached the foaming whitecaps along the shoreline and stared across the ocean. A group of pelicans bounced up and down in the distance with the tossed waves and the last of the raindrops popped circles into small saltwater ponds left behind by the receding tide. She slouched down onto the beach, keeping a silent vigil with the dispersing gray clouds and peeking blue sky. The sun rose and Muirin fell over into the quilt, squishing her cheek into the drenched fabric and falling back to sleep.

When she woke, the sun beamed over her high in the sky, the quilt and sand now dry, and her wind-swept curls beat against her cheeks and shoulders. She yawned and rubbed the sand from her brow as she stretched. The memories flooded back into her mind. A sigh breathed across her lips. Still here. Still alone. Not a dream. Muirin whispered into the wind.

“What do I do now, Mummy?”

She gazed up the beach toward the North end, the place where her mother now rested. “She will tell me,” Muirin answered.

She stood up and folded the quilt, draping it over her arm and walked through the now calm waves to the driftwood beach. Along the way, she paused to examine a broken 'gaineamh fianán', a sand cookie, remembering her mother's Gaelic words flowing into her mind. She picked up three small conch shells along the way, all abandoned by their owner, gathered up her skirt into a pouch and tucked them into the folds for safe keeping. By the time she reached the fallen trees along the beach, her skirt held a treasure of conch, cockle, cookies and cowries. She held back her mess of tangled locks from her eyes to focus on her mother's grave. A few little white-breasted Sandpipers waded in the waters, searching for clams in the shallows, and a dozen terns banked along with the ocean breeze over the spot above one of the largest overturned live oaks.

Standing there alone, watching the birds flock together, and remembering the cluster of rabbits huddling under the bush, sudden awareness filled her sad mind. She realized what she did not know and the emptiness drained her.

Author Info
D. K. Marley is a historical fiction writer specializing in Shakespearean themes. Her grandmother, an English Literature teacher, gave her a volume of Shakespeare's plays when she was eleven, inspiring DK to delve further into the rich Elizabethan language. Eleven years ago she began the research leading to the publication of her first novel "Blood and Ink," an epic tale of lost dreams, spurned love, jealousy and deception in Tudor England as the two men, William Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, fight for one name and the famous works now known as the Shakespeare Folio. She is an avid Shakespearean / Marlowan, a member of the Marlowe Society, the Shakespeare Fellowship and a signer of the Declaration of Intent for the Shakespeare Authorship Debate. She has traveled to England three times for intensive research and debate workshops, and is a graduate of the intense training workshop "The Writer's Retreat Workshop" founded by Gary Provost and hosted by Jason Sitzes. She lives in Georgia with her husband and a Scottish Terriers named Maggie and Buster.

For more information, please visit D.K. Marley's website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Goodreads.

Giveaway
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