Merry Christmas to all! And may the New Year be filled with joy and hope and better things. In the meantime, 
these books, along with the books from the Blue House series, are discounted on Amazon. Hope my readers have enjoyed reading my novels. Serenade of the Cattails, the fourth novel in the Blue House series, should be out no later than June. It is a true Whodunit–a challenge to write. Also, Topsail Island Tango should be available as an audio-book late winter or early spring. I’m so excited for this new format. Now my books are available in hard copy, eBook and audio book form. Thank you so much to my readers!
MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope this is a wonderful season for everybody. Now thru the Christmas holidays my Topsail Island Trilogy is on sale on Amazon. Check out these good prices. Also, The Blue House Series is also on sale. Check it out on my author page, Carol Ann Ross, author.
The Blue House series, right now my most favorite series, is well on its way to having the fourth book completed.. It’s all about the old swing bridge, the huge dunes we once had, the 9 fishing piers, and characterizations of the people who came and went (and stayed), that I can muster. Of course I write fiction. I am a novelist, so I take liberties with times and locations, and people-all in an attempt to bring the Topsail of the 1960s alive. I hope my readers like my work, I hope it helps you to recall your youth. And if you are young, maybe it will give you a glimpse into another time. when people were vulnerable (as they are today), had dreams, made mistakes ( some really stupid ones), and, for lack of a better term- were simply human beings trying to do the best they could.
Here is a little excerpt: Rousing her from her sleep, Rufus Myers called softly to his daughter, “Hey little chicken, better get up if you want to go fishing with me.”
Mim looked into her father’s face. As usual, a broad smile stretched across it. His brown eyes held the whole world. She loved him more than anything, even her dog Rusty.
“Come on, gal, get your britches on and get your fishing pole and let’s go out in the skiff and catch some mullet.”
Her arms encircled her father’s neck, and she kissed him long on the cheek, the stiff bristles of his day old beard scratching against her soft skin. “You’re itchy, Daddy,” she giggled. “We’re gonna go out by Goat Island? That’s where we caught them last time.”
I hear music
If you love the ocean, the marsh-the mountains, wherever “your” place is— and if you’ve spent hours there, contemplating, dreaming, whatever-maybe this excerpt from Serenade of the Cattails will make sense to you.
Seeing herself as the girl (she’d never stopped doing that) Mary licked her lips to the memory of salt air and sunshine glaring off the stands of cattails that, though they made no noise even in the breeze, had always conjured the music of life in the marsh, where life began. Scenes of her past life, dreams for the future, it all played in her head creating a sort of lilt, an unintelligible tune that brought humming to her lips; humming that changed with the days and direction of her thoughts.
I learned a new word.The word is draoi. It is pronounced “dree,” phonetically and it is of Scottish/Irish origin. If you look up the meaning it refers to someone who has healing powers. My Mary character, In Serenade of the Cattails, refers to herself as a draoi, though modestly, citing that her powers are limited and that too much power is hogwash and can be even bad.
Here is a little excerpt from “Cattails,” due out in the Spring.
“Well, no wonder you came to see me,” Mary tittered. But that little brooch, well, it’s not nearly as powerful as this one.” She turned the one in her hand over and stroked the purple stones.”
“Powerful?” Scaggins asked.
“Oh yes, don’t you know.” leaning down to ear level, Mary whispered, “Some people around here call me a draoi.”
“The term sounded somewhat familiar, “A draoi?” The more he thought, and by the look in Mary’s eyes, Ben knew what she meant.
He chuckled lightly and nodded, “You do spells and heal things, right?”
“Some say I do, but I don’t do spells. I’m not a witch or anything like that. I just
pray or really think real hard, I watch and learn.” Walking back to her side of the table, Mary sat, her chin resting on her hands, “you know, when I was a child, I used to treat babies with thrush. You know what thrush is, don’t you?”
Ben nodded, “some kind of fungal infection in the mouth?”
Mary nodded, “If a baby is born after the father dies, she has the gift. My father died two months before I was born, I had the gift and neighbors, and sometimes mothers would bring their babies to our home and have me breathe into their mouths to heal them.”
“Did it work?” Officer Scaggins asked.
“I’m told it did.” Mary winked and leaned back in her chair,
I’ve lately been working on the 4th book in the Blue House Series, Serenade of the Cattails. This book, as the others in the series, is set in the 1960s. What a very different world that period is from the one we live in now. Or is it? Or not so much, huh? Crazy times call for crazy, or at least odd, characters. I really like Mary Bolton, a pretty much eccentric old gal who is chock full of old wives tales and off the beaten path beliefs. She shapes the story in ways that take the reader to very different places and she loves the cattails.
Who likes short shorts? We like short shorts….words to a song popular in the 1960s. And this is a photo of my father, my sister and myself in 1967. It was a different world then, we saw nothing wrong with wearing short shorts-and that was way before Daisy Dukes came into fashion. People thought differently then, I think. Anyway, we were safe on Topsail Island even though miles and miles away the Vietnam War was waging, cities were being burned, women were burning their bras, MLK had been shot, Bobby Kennedy had been too.
My new series, The Blue House Series, is about those times. Starting in 1963, when women wore gloves and pill box hats with matching shoes, and hemlines were either mid-knee or just below. Three short years later those fashions were passe and hemlines were mid-thigh. This series traverses time, capturing the journey through the 60s. At least that’s what I’m shootin’ for.
So far, Topsail Island Tango, Sneaky Freaky, and Blowfish are available. Presently I am working on Serenade of the Cattails and I’m having a ball researching information about that time in our lives and trying to make the words a story. Please check out these books. And if you have been reading me, I would say the story line is somewhere between The Topsail Island Trilogy and The Murder by the Seas books-with some coming of age, romance, murder and intrigue. Thanks for reading!
If you remember the swing bridge Topsail had a few years ago, then perhaps the blurb on this back cover will bring back some good memories. If you don’t remember the bridge, hopefully it will give you an idea of how things were way back when, in the 1960s. Blowfish is set in the Vietnam era, the age of the hippies and revolutions and anger, riots, bra burnings. But Topsail was a bubble, an impervious bubble where one could be safe.
I often wonder if my parents felt as I do now, worried about our country’s future.
Off to the printer, manuscript and cover. So very excited to get this baby done. I love the cover, the back is great too and I’ll add that later. For now, check out Amazon in a few days if you want to order one and check with me or with local stores in about two weeks. I will be at the first Topsail Beach Market May 25 and hopefully the books will be there on time. If not I will post when. Thank you so much readers. Hope I don’t disappoint.
BLOWFISH! It is off to the editor and hopefully will be available in a couple of weeks. We are working on the cover and I’ll post that asap–things are going along swimmingly. BLOWFISH is the third novel in the BLUE HOUSE SERIES and to tell the truth, it is probably my favorite book. (Hairawn Muhly is tied for that position) I did a lot of research and spoke to so many Vietnam vets and old fogies from the 1960s. God bless them all! Here is a little excerpt from my new book:
To you a bath is water hot
Enough to make it steam
To us it’s nothing more than
A leech infested stream.
You have no doubt, been scared enough
To think the end is near
But I bet you’ve never had to live
A whole year in total fear.
You’ve got it pretty easy
Compared to us across the sea
But all any soldier asks of you
Is to please remember me.
From “Just Thinking,” a poem by Carl Andersen, a former US servicemember, used with permission from his estate.
