An absorbing and suspenseful page-turner that takes place amongst a backdrop of racial tensions in mid-1960’s America, The Promised Land by Valerie Stocking is a spellbinding journey full of insight and intensity. It is a Best Indie Books of 2012 SEMIFINALIST and is currently ranked #9 in Amazon’s Free Historical Fiction genre.
A Brief Synopsis of The Promised Land:
The pain, fear and rage of changing cultural landscapes explode in this provocative and sobering look at America’s south during the mid-1960’s. Twelve-year-old Joy Bradford moves with her mother Jessica from their white Connecticut suburb to the racially divided town of Willets Point, Florida. Her friendship with Clay, who is a mixed-race boy in her school and also a newcomer in town, sends shockwaves that dovetail with a growing sense of tension and unease in the community as a whole.
Clay’s well-educated, African-American father Clytus attempts to open a clothing store in the white section of downtown WIllets Point. This prompts Jessica’s new lawyer cum
boyfriend and leader of the local Klan chapter, Bill McKendrick, to join with other white citizens in using great force to block Clytus’s dreams. The Klan’s subsequent demand that Clytus and his family move out of the white neighborhood they live in sets off an explosive confrontation that will change them all forever.
About the Author:
Valerie Stocking began writing when she was five years old and won her first short story competition at the age of eight. In 1966, she and her mother moved from Connecticut to a small town in Florida, where Valerie encountered difficulties with the public school system, bigotry and bullying. She left a year later. She went on to graduate high school and college before earning a master’s degree from New York University in cinema studies. She has written consistently throughout her life everything from newspaper articles to advertising copy. She worked for six years as an editor for audio books, abridging over 100 novels. For ten years she wrote plays that had readings and productions throughout the United State and Canada. Her novel, “A Touch of Murder,” which was published in 2010, is the first in the Samantha Kern mystery series and was nominated for a Global eBook Award for Best Mystery in 2011. She currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is working on her next novel.
What People Are Saying About The Promised Land:
“Very intense at times, this book takes you kicking and screaming back into the heat of the Klan and the horror that they inflicted. Well done look at history, yet with a theme that is still relevant for our times today!” –M. Schemanski
“Valerie Stocking’s The Promised Land is a brilliantly paced story of a 12 year girl struggling to survive life with her mentally disabled mother in a small southern town in the 1960’s.” –Tower Lowe
“Each of the characters is carefully and richly developed and their all to real interactions propel the story very believably.” –FN Pearson, MD
Pick up your copy of The Promised Land today.
Don’t forget to sign up by email for the latest ebook suggestions from The Kindle Book Review.