Good Morning!
Can you believe July is half over already?!
Me either.
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I'm off to Bayou Writers Group meeting so let me introduce to you, brand new-to-me-our-blog guest Sandra Byrd. Please give her a huge W-E-L-C-O-M-E as she gives us sneak peek into her brand new book, Heirlooms!
Answering a woman’s desperate call for help, young Navy widow Helen Devries opens her Whidbey Island home as a refuge to Choi Eunhee. As they bond over common losses and a delicate, potentially devastating secret, their friendship spans the remainder of their lives.
After losing her mother, Cassidy Quinn spent her childhood summers with her gran, Helen, at her farmhouse. Nourished by her grandmother’s love and encouragement, Cassidy discovers a passion that she hopes will bloom into a career. But after Helen passes, Cassidy learns that her home and garden have fallen into serious disrepair. Worse, a looming tax debt threatens her inheritance. Facing the loss of her legacy and in need of allies and ideas, Cassidy reaches out to Nick, her former love, despite the complicated emotions brought by having him back in her life.
Cassidy inherits not only the family home but a task, spoken with her grandmother’s final breaths: ask Grace Kim—Eunhee’s granddaughter—to help sort through the contents of the locked hope chest in the attic. As she and Grace dig into the past, they unearth their grandmothers’ long-held secret and more. Each startling revelation reshapes their understanding of their grandmothers and ultimately inspires the courage to take risks and make changes to own their lives.
Set in both modern-day and midcentury Whidbey Island, Washington, this dual-narrative story of four women—grandmothers and granddaughters—intertwines across generations to explore the secrets we keep, the love we pass down, and the heirlooms we inherit from a well-lived life.
In Heirlooms, Sandra Byrd . . .
• Tells a dual-narrative story of four women—grandmothers and granddaughters— intertwining across generations and cultures to explore the secrets we keep, the love we pass down, and the heirlooms we inherit.
• Encourages us to change views and responses to neurodiverse people in a world built for the neurotypical.
• Explores the American dream, the costs for the first generation, and the challenges of the generations that follow.
• Acknowledges that making a life is more important than making a living.
• Inspires the courage to take risks and make changes in a world built upon not disappointing others.
Excerpt: Two long rings, three short.
Helen hesitantly moved toward the phone. It sat upon a small table next to the window overlooking the unused canning shed, set in a field sleepy with wet weeds splayed against the ground like closed eyelashes. Licorice rope phone lines stretched toward the farmhouse. Four birds convened on the line, silhouetted by the outdoor lights she’d had installed for safety.
Two long rings, three short.
One bird cocked his head and looked directly at her. Are you going to answer?
Helen reached for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello. Is this Mrs. Helen Devries?” a lady’s voice queried, her tone undergirded by strain and slightly nasal, as if spoken by someone who’d been crying. “The wife of Lieutenant Bob Devries?”
“Yes, this is Mrs. Helen Devries.”
“I am sorry to bother you at this hour. I am Choi Eunhee. Wife of Chief James Roy.”
Helen shuffled through her memories. “Hello, Mrs. Roy. Am I right to think that your husband served with my husband?”
“Yes. In South Korea, where I am from and where we married. My husband told me that he served many years with your husband and that if I were ever in trouble, I should contact him, as he would help me.”
Helen’s fatigue lifted and the sound of the news in the background faded. “Are you in trouble?”
“Yes.”
Helen steadied herself. “I’m honored that Chief Roy thinks so highly of my husband. But my husband can’t help you. He was killed two years ago.”
“My husband is also dead.” Silence bled into the white space of the moment, and then she continued, “They whisper that I helped kill him. That I might help kill them, too.”
Taken from Heirlooms by Sandra Byrd. Copyright © 2022. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries. All rights reserved.
Sandra Byrd is the author of more than fifty published books, including the historical novels To Die For, Mist of Midnight, and her most recent, Lady of a Thousand Treasures. She has received many awards, nominations, and accolades for her work, including the Historical Novel Society’s Editor’s Choice award, two Christy Award nominations, Library Journal Best Book selections, and inclusion on Booklist’s Top Ten Inspirational Books of the Year list. Sandra lives in Seattle with her husband and with her grown children nearby.
Find out more by visiting Sandra's Website and following her on Social Media.
Heirlooms sounds like a lovely novel, Sandra. Thank you for sharing with us today. We certainly wish you the best of luck and God's blessings.
Until next week friends, take care and God Bless you Also!
PamT
