A luminous narrative inspired by the fascinating real case of the Blue People of Kentucky' that probes questions of identity, love, and family. In 1937, there are recesses in Appalachia no outsiders have ever explored. Two government-sponsored documentarians from Cincinnati, Ohioa writer and photographerare dispatched to penetrate this wilderness and record what they find for President Roosevelts Works Progress Administration. For photographer Clay Havens, the assignment is his last chance to reboot his flagging career. So when he and his journalist partner are warned away from the remote Spooklight Holler outside of town, they set off eagerly in search of a headline story. What they see will haunt Clay into his old age: Jubilee Buford, a woman whose skin is a shocking and unmistakable shade of blue. From this happenstance meeting between a woman isolated from society and persecuted her whole life, and a man accustomed to keeping himself at lens distance from others, comes a mesmerizing story in which the dark shades of betrayal, prejudice, fear, and guilt, are refracted along with the incandescent hues of passion and courage. Panning across the rich rural aesthetic of eastern Kentucky, The Last Blue is a captivating love story and an intimate portrait of what it is like to be truly one of a kind.
In this nightmare "Wizard of Oz," a 16-year-old girl is abducted from her Kansas life and locked away in an abandoned missile silo by a man who believes he is saving her from the impending destruction of the world.
Blythe believes her greatest challenge is to find a way to escape and get home until she discovers that she has to struggle against crushing loneliness, the encroaching madness of her captor and the persistent temptation to give up. Nothing, however, prepares her for the burden of having to raising a child in confinement.
Out of terror, she must fashion wonder for the boy, setting aside the truth about a world he may never see for the myth that just might give meaning to his life underground. Seventeen years later, their lives are ambushed by an event at once promising and devastating as she and her son escape to life above, and Blythe’s dream of going home hangs in the balance.
A wonderful new storyteller unleashes a soaring debut that sweeps from the hills of Hawaii to the veldt of South Africa. Come Sunday is that joyous, special thing: a saga that captivates from the very first page, breaking our hearts while making our spirits soar. Abbe Deighton is a woman who has lost her bearings. Once a child of the African plains, she is now settled in Hawaii, married to a minister, and waging her battles in a hallway of monotony. There is the leaky roof, the chafing expectations of her husband's congregation, and the constant demands of motherhood. But in an instant, beginning with the skid of tires, Abbe's battlefield is transformed when her three-year-old daughter is killed, triggering in Abbe a seismic grief that will cut a swath through the landscape of her life and her identity. What an enthralling debut this is! What a storyteller we have here! As Isla Morley's novel sweeps from the hills of Honolulu to the veldt of South Africa, we catch a hint of the spirit of Barbara Kingsolver and the mesmerizing truth of Jodi Picoult. We are reminded of how it felt, a while ago, to dive into the drama of The Thorn Birds. Come Sunday is a novel about searching for a true homeland, family bonds torn asunder, and the unearthing of decades-old secrets. It is a novel to celebrate, and Isla Morley is a writer to love.
