Painted Dresses
by Patricia Hickman
by Patricia Hickman
Gaylen Boatwright, a woman suffering a recent marital separation, has come back home to Boiling Waters, North Carolina to bury her father and move her troubled younger sister Delia into the family home. The relatives who gathered to bury the family patriarch have all left the home. Gaylen drives Delia to her dilapidated trailer to gather her belongings and move her back into their father’s now-empty house, the family homestead. The sisters are left to sort through and perform their father’s last wishes even though Delia is of little help to Gaylen who has been handed the mantle her father had carried, that of keeping Delia out of trouble.
This story is one that is full of many surprises and also many sources of inspiration. I met a young artist who would dip women’s dresses in paint and then arrange the painted dress on a canvas. When a woman allowed him to use her wedding dress I began to think about the story’s behind women’s dresses but how time and family secrets cover up those stories. From that sprang the story of two sisters on a perilous road trip delivering these mysterious painted dresses relative-to-relative. Painted Dresses has a deep spiritual subtext and is written for readers and book clubs who might like southern literary fiction or books by authors such as Barbara Kingsolver or Sue Monk Kidd. While southern lit provides a vehicle for dark themes, the sisters’ family problems create moments of levity and the funny things that happen in all of our families.
This story is one that is full of many surprises and also many sources of inspiration. I met a young artist who would dip women’s dresses in paint and then arrange the painted dress on a canvas. When a woman allowed him to use her wedding dress I began to think about the story’s behind women’s dresses but how time and family secrets cover up those stories. From that sprang the story of two sisters on a perilous road trip delivering these mysterious painted dresses relative-to-relative. Painted Dresses has a deep spiritual subtext and is written for readers and book clubs who might like southern literary fiction or books by authors such as Barbara Kingsolver or Sue Monk Kidd. While southern lit provides a vehicle for dark themes, the sisters’ family problems create moments of levity and the funny things that happen in all of our families.
“Hickman gamely unpacks the lies families tell each other, the cost of family secrets to ourselves and others, the bonds between sisters and the walls between husbands and wives. Her sparkling talent is evident in this engrossing story.” (Publisher’s Weekly’ July 2008)
“With engaging characters—quirky, flawed, but endearing—a vivid sense of place, and a wonderfully droll, tell-it-like-it-is narrator in Gaylen Boatwright, Painted Dresses is the ideal book to lose yourself in on a rainy—or any—day. “
--NAEEM MURR, author of The Boy, The Genius of the Sea, and The Perfect Man.
All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.
—Plutarch
http://www.patriciahickman.com/
Patricia Hickman is a humorist and a storyteller and speaks around the country on family issues and the craft of writing.
“With engaging characters—quirky, flawed, but endearing—a vivid sense of place, and a wonderfully droll, tell-it-like-it-is narrator in Gaylen Boatwright, Painted Dresses is the ideal book to lose yourself in on a rainy—or any—day. “
--NAEEM MURR, author of The Boy, The Genius of the Sea, and The Perfect Man.
All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.
—Plutarch
http://www.patriciahickman.com/
Patricia Hickman is a humorist and a storyteller and speaks around the country on family issues and the craft of writing.
Deadly Intent
By Camy Tang
SCENE OF THE CRIME
The Grant family’s exclusive Sonoma spa is a place for rest and relaxation—not murder! Then Naomi Grant finds her client Jessica Ortiz bleeding to death in her massage room, and everything falls apart. The salon’s reputation is at stake...and so is Naomi’s freedom when she discovers that she is one of the main suspects! Her only solace is found with the other suspect—Dr. Devon Knightley, the victim’s ex-husband. But Devon is hiding secrets of his own. When they come to light, where can Naomi turn...and whom can she trust?
Read the rest of Deadly Intent on Camy’s website: http://www.camytang.com/
Camy Tang writes romance with a kick of wasabi. She used to be a biologist, but now she is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads a worship team for Sunday service. She also runs the Story Sensei fiction critique service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels every week, and she ponders frivolous things like dumb dogs (namely, hers), coffee-geek husbands (no resemblance to her own...), the writing journey, Asiana, and anything else that comes to mind. Visit her website at http://www.camytang.com/ for a huge website contest going on right now, giving away fourteen boxes of books and 30 copies of her latest release, DEADLY INTENT.
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