Bridge aficionados Loyd E. Hill and Marvin R. Query now have another common interest — “Reap the Wild Seeds,” a novel Query started years ago.
Hill helped Query expand and edit the novel recently, and it is now for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites in e-reader and paperback form. Published through Xlibris, the 189-page book will soon be available locally as well.
Hill describes the novel as a beautiful love story that tells the story of three siblings separated for 15 years after the death of their mother. The orphans’ exploits reach far beyond their humble beginnings in the mountains of North Carolina.
Here’s the first paragraph of the prologue:
“It was noon when she exited the chauffeur driven limousine. The bright, blistering sun was radiantly shining, and creating lasers dancing off the limbs of the giant oak, maple and elm trees that encompass the Uwharrie Mountain top where Tara Strange Perry was making her way up the cobblestone walkway.”
This is Hill’s second book in two years, the first being “17 Things That You Should or Should Not Do in the Bridge Game.”
Margaret Maron talks about “Three Day Town” on UNC-TV’s “North Carolina Bookwatch” at noon today and Thursday at 5 p.m.
Bestselling author Maron usually sets her popular Deborah Knott mystery novels in fictional Colleton County, east of Raleigh, where Knott grew up and now holds court. But in “Three Day Town,” Judge Knott and her new husband travel to New York City for a winter holiday, and, of course, a murder.
Maron reintroduces Sigrid Harald, a New York detective who was the lead character in an earlier series of mystery novels. As Maron fans now know, Maron recently brought Sigrid down to Johnston (that’s Colleton) County to help Judge Knott solve another North Carolina crime in her latest book, “The Buzzard Table.”
Though Maron is proud of her entertaining mystery stories, she is unapologetic about her interest in some of the important public issues that face North Carolinians. Her story’s plots often bring into play the state’s problems of race, migrant labor, politics and unstructured growth.
She explains, “The mystery novel is the peg upon which I hang my love and concerns for North Carolina as the state transitions from agriculture to high tech, from a largely rural countryside to one increasingly under assault by housing developments and chain stores.”
The program will also air at Wednesday, July 17 at 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. on UNC-MX, a digital cable system channel (Time Warner 172 or 4.4). In addition, airing at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday on UNC-MX will be a classic Bookwatch featuring Orrin Pilkey.