Howdy ya’ll!
Come on in and sit for a spell.
Have some lemonade to wash the dust down and check out Moccasin Trace.
I have the splendid cover to share along with a glimpse inside this book.
And a giveaway, so don’t forget to enter!
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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.
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Enjoy this glimpse inside the book
The Captain lowered his brass spyglass. “My apologies for having to disturb you,” he said to
Hamilton. With full steam and sail for now we have speed on their lead ship. They’ll try to angle
us off from the inlet this side of Santa Rosa, but I mean to give ’em no chance of that. Too
shallow in there for them to clear the reef. Once we get lee to the shoals…” he raised his glass.
“Lead frigate is gaining.” He shook his head. “First time we’ve picked up anything this close
in.”
Sarah walked to the bridge railing and fixed her eyes toward the tall white sails of the onrushing
juggernaut. Her father’s enemy, Hamilton’s enemy, her enemy; until this moment the battles
had been some place far away. Tall and sleek in the distance, coming toward them, a deadly
beauty in the mad fury of men’s devotion to destruction and death.
Hamilton asked the Captain, “Will they try to board?”
His jaw set, “When we don’t heave to, she’ll try to force us to ground. Failing that they’ll use
their guns.”
The thought of this pirate flag bearing down on them, their seafarers clamoring over the side,
stabbed Hamilton into a heated white-hot hate of Yankies — good ones, bad ones, any of them.
“They’re not boardin’ us,” the Captain said. “We’ll scuttle first. No Yankee’s puttin’ a foul foot on
my ship, as long as…”
The distant muzzle flash was followed by a muffled boom rolling across the water. Hamilton
sheltered Sarah in his arms. The shot smacked the water off their port bow, sending up a tall
blossoming white plume tall and falling back in a graceful slow splash.
“…a warning shot for us to heave to,” the Captain frowned. “Allows ’em[+> to ]adjust their
range.” He eyed Sarah, “Missus Ingram…” he agonized, “To avoid exposing you to harm, I am
prepared to yield to…”
“You will do no such thing!” Sarah bristled. Her head turned toward this full-sailed invader.
“These philistines are in our waters — attacking us!” Sarah’s blood was up.
“Sarah, the Captain’s right,” Hamilton said
“No, I say!” Sarah whirled to face both men. “We will not yield to those…those barbarians!”
Greer fiery rage showed in full vigor. Her fists clenched, “You said you could make a run for
it! Our armies need your cargo. If there’s a chance…” She glowered toward the oncoming
menace.
Hamilton saw not the pampered daughter of a rich plantation father, but a wind-whipped chalk-
faced New World Jeanne d’Arc girded for battle, blazing with indignation, exchanging armoured
horse for ship and English for Yankie, and loved her the more for it.
He nodded to the Captain, “We run for it.”
“I know how Papa felt,” her lip quivered, “…when he said he hated runnin’.”
“…to fight another day,” Hamilton hugged her tighter.
~~~~
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
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