~ Wendy Webb - Author ~

Hello Readers,

I want to introduce you to a new favorite author, Wendy Webb.
Ms. Webb writes mystery stories in the Gothic tradition (think Victoria Holt and Dorothy Eden or recently Carol Goodman) about long buried family secrets, big spooky haunted houses and ghosts from the past.  The settings are always on the Great Lakes. She gets an A for setting up the Gothic atmosphere. I have so enjoyed reading her stories and if you like this genre I promise you will too. 



Her Website:  Wendy Webb Website

Her first book was The Tale of Halcyon Crane.

    

Here is the link if you can't see the YouTube player:

The Tale of Halycron Crane YouTube 

Review from Goodreads:

    

A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling modern ghost story

When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James's mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie's father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago?

In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family's dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception--a coffee-shop owner and the family's lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there's the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her--maybe it's the eerie atmosphere or maybe it's the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can't shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen . . .

In The Tale of Halcyon Crane, Wendy Webb has created a haunting story full of delicious thrills, vibrant characters, and family secrets.   

  

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Her second book is called, The Fate of Mercy Alban.      
         

 

 

From award-winning novelist Wendy Webb comes a spine-tingling mystery about family secrets set in a big, old haunted house on Lake Superior.

Grace Alban has spent twenty years away from her childhood home, the stately Alban House, for reasons she would rather forget. But when her mother's unexpected death brings Grace and her teen-age daughter home, she finds more haunting the halls and passageways of Alban House than her own personal demons.

Long-buried family secrets, a packet of old love letters and a lost manuscript plunge Grace into a decades-old mystery about a scandalous party at Alban House, when a world-famous author took his own life and Grace's aunt disappeared without a trace. The night has been shrouded in secrecy by the powerful Alban family for all of these years, and Grace realizes her family secrets tangle and twist as darkly as the secret passages of Alban House. Her mother was intending to tell the truth about that night to a reporter on the very day she died - could it have been murder? Or was she a victim of the supposed Alban curse? With the help of the disarmingly kind--and attractive—Reverend Matthew Parker, Grace must uncover the truth about her home and its curse before she and her daughter become the next victims.
 

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And lastly, her third book, The Vanishing        

 

  

Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired…and who the world believes is dead.

When she arrives at the Sinclairs' enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her "too-good-to-be-true" position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls.

~ The Great River Road - Oak Alley Plantation ~

This is Part 5 of my "Great River Road" adventures.
The Great River Road is a collection of state and local roads which follow the course of the Mississippi River through ten states of the United States. They are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The Great River Road is not a single road as its name might suggest. It is more accurately described as a designated route, the whole of which consists of connected segments of other named and numbered highways and streets, each maintained by state, county, or local jurisdictions.

The Great River Road has some really fascinating history which you can find lots of information about.

But now, I am going to share with you a little piece of my travels along The River Road. My travels started due to my love of great houses and an interesting book I read about Louisiana. At one time, the great houses were all built along the Mississippi river because it was their way of transporting their crops but also their means of travel and their connection with the other people who lived on the river.

In 2001, I drove the River Road down into Louisiana and stopped at numerous plantations along the way.

I would now like to introduce you to Oak Alley Plantation. This was by far the most beautiful and well-preserved plantation house that I visited. The alley of trees is breathtaking.

Called the "Grande Dame of the Great River Road", it is perhaps the most photographed plantation in Louisiana. This home was built in 1839 and was originally named Bon Séjour (pleasant sojourn). Passengers on steamboats, traveling on the nearby Mississippi River, had a very different view of the property. Marveling at the quarter-mile avenue of 28 giant, live oaks leading up to the house, they dubbed it “Oak Alley.”

Oak Alley was established to grow sugar cane. The plantation was not physically damaged during the American Civil War, but the economic dislocations of the war and the end of slavery made it no longer economically viable.
 
The design is Greek Revival architecture. The mansion has a square floor plan, organized around a central hall that runs from the front to the rear on both floors. The rooms feature high ceilings and large windows. 

It is located in Vacherie, Louisiana, and lies between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. 

I have to admit that this was the house the knocked my socks off. Everything about it is absolutely fabulous.  

Films:
The Long Hot Summer with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward and including Don Johnson, Cybill Shepherd and Ava Gardner.

Interview with a Vampire starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Based on the Anne Rice best seller by the same name.

Primary Colors starring John Travolta, Emma Thompson, Kathy Bates, Bill Bob Thornton

These are not my pictures but ones that I found on the web. They are much nicer than my own since I did not have a decent camera at the time.

Clicking on the pictures will expand them to a larger size. 

The Alley of Oaks

Sun Dappled

Entry Hall

Dining Room

Living Room

Bedroom

Bedroom

Bedroom

The Grounds

Side of House

Sunset

An old painting I found

Watch a Video

 

Here is the link if you cannot view the YouTube player:  Video

You can read about Oak Alley Plantation on the Oak Alley Plantation Website if you would like more information 

More to come on my River Road journeys...

~ Southern Gothic Literature ~

One of my favorite book genres is Southern Gothic. Love it! Can't get enough of it!

So what is Southern Gothic Literature? 

Southern Gothic novels often deal with the plight of those who are ostracized or oppressed by traditional Southern culture, characters being damaged or delusional, supernatural happenings, murders and the sweltering heat of the South.

The early authors of this genre are Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

Southern Gothic literature was revived in the 1920's through William Faulkner. 

So here we go, in no particular order.

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The Witching Hour (Mayfair Witches, Book 1) By Anne Rice 1990

The first in the Mayfair Witches series, The Witching Hour introduces the fictional Mayfair family of New Orleans, generations of male and female witches. This tight-knit and deeply connected family, where a death of one strengthens the others with his/her knowledge. 

One Mayfair witch per generation is also designated to receive the powers of "the man," known as Lasher. Lasher gives the witches gifts, excites them, and protects them. Unsure as to exactly what this spirit is, the Mayfair clan knows him variously as a protector, a god-like figure, a sexual being, and the image of death. 

Lasher's current witch is Deirdre, who lies catatonic from psychological shock treatments. Deirdre's daughter, Rowan, has been spirited away from this "evil" and has happily become a neurosurgeon and has an uncanny gift to see the intent behind the facade. Rowan also has a gift few doctors possess--she can heal cells. Yet, though she uses it to save lives, she also fears that she has caused several deaths. She rescues Michael from drowning. Michael then develops some extraordinary powers that compel him to seek New Orleans and to seek Rowan. He finds both, and pulls the tale closer together by meeting people connected to the Mayfair family who now fear Rowan because she is the first Mayfair who can kill without Lasher's help. Michael dives into learning the history of the Mayfair witches: Deborah, Charlotte, Mary Beth, Stella, Antha, and many others across hundreds of years and three continents. 

When Michael looks up from his reading, he learns that Rowan has come to New Orleans to attend her mother's funeral. Rowan learns of her family history, her ancestral home in shambles, and Lasher waiting for the next one. Rowan dedicates herself to stopping Lasher's reign. Michael too has his own mission, but it is foggy and unclear to him. But Lasher is seductively powerful and Rowan's gifts offer him the opportunity to achieve his ultimate goal.

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The Last Child By John Hart 2009

Thirteen year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street. Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is—confident in a way that he can never fully explain.

Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene.

Then a second child goes missing...

Undeterred by Hunt's threats or his mother's pleas, Johnny enlists the help of his last friend, and together they plunge into the wild, to a forgotten place with a history of violence that goes back more than a hundred years. There, they meet a giant of a man, an escaped convict on his own tragic quest. What they learn from him will shatter every notion Johnny had about the fate of his sister; it will lead them to another far place, to a truth that will test both boys to the limit.

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Where The Woodbine Twines By Sherry Austin 2006

A woman is confronted with an enigmatic figure from her past in this Southern Gothic thriller of unresolved friendship and unsettling memories. 

The coincidental sighting of someone resembling a long-lost childhood acquaintance sets off a flood of memories about their strange experience. She hopes she'll at last find the answer to the question that has stuck with her all the years since: Whatever became of the unforgettable Catherine Wiley? 

Set against the live-oak splendor of the South Carolina low country and the dark glamour of Myrtle Beach in the 1950s, this tale of nostalgia, fear, and hope twists like a leaf in the wind.

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Master Of The Delta By Thomas H. Cook 2008

In 1954 Mississippi, Jack Branch returns to his father's Delta estate, Great Oaks, to perform an act of noblesse oblige: teaching at the local high school. While conducting a class on evil throughout history, Jack is shocked to discover that his unassuming student Eddie is the son of the Coed Killer, a notorious local murderer. 

Jack feels compelled to mentor the boy, encouraging Eddie to examine his father's crime and using his own good name to open the doors that Eddie's lineage can't. But when Eddie's investigation turns in an unexpected direction, Jack finds himself questioning Eddie's motives and his own. As the deadly consequences of Jack's actions fall inescapably into place, Thomas H. Cook masterfully reveals the darker truths that lurk in the recesses of small-town lives and in the hearts of well-intentioned men...

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Fox's Earth By Anne Rivers Siddons 1981

Ruth Yancey knew she was beautiful, she knew she was special. Despite her squalid Georgia mill town roots, it was her looks and her inbred belief in a powerful destiny that led her to the most exquisite mansion in Sparta: Fox's Earth. Through insinuation, manipulation, and an impenetrable evil, she became its mistress for three generations--until another woman attempted to match her madness.... 

A dark and seductive tale of five generations of Southern women and the house that was at once both their greatest inheritance and their most confining prison. 

In 1904, Ruth Yancey is only ten years old when she is brought to live at the magnificent mansion called Fox's Earth. But the impoverished daughter of an abusive mill worker has already internalized her mother's steely code: men may hold all the power, but a woman possesses one thing that can get her anything in the world she wants... if she's prepared to make certain sacrifices. 

Deserted by her mother in order to give her a better chance at wealth, Ruth's own ambition drives her to possess Fox's Earth at any cost, even though her sacrifice will ultimately be her own husband, children and grandchildren.

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Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil By John Berendt 1994

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.  

Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case. 

It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously funny black drag queen; the acerbic and arrogant antiques dealer; the sweet-talking, piano-playing con artist; young blacks dancing the minuet at the black debutante ball; and Minerva, the voodoo priestess who works her magic in the graveyard at midnight.  

These and other Savannahians act as a Greek chorus, with Berendt revealing the alliances, hostilities, and intrigues that thrive in a town where everyone knows everyone else. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil: A Savannah Story is a sublime and seductive reading experience. Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, this enormously engaging portrait of a most beguiling Southern city is certain to become a modern classic.

I fell in love with Savannah after reading this book and so I had to visit the city. 
Savannah is one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S. If you've never been there, it is an absolute must to visit.

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Eden Close By Anita Shreve 1989

A compelling tale of edgy, small-town emotions, lingering obsession, and romantic salvation. 

Andrew, after many years, returns to his hometown to attend his mother's funeral. Planning to remain only a few days, he is drawn into the tragic legacy of his childhood friend and beautiful girl next door, Eden Close. 

An adopted child, Eden had learned to avoid the mother who did not want her and to please the father who did. She also aimed to please Andrew and his friends, first by being one of the boys and later by seducing them. Then one hot night, Andrew was awakened by gunshots and piercing screams from the next farm: Mr. Close had been killed and Eden blinded. Now, seventeen years later, Andrew begins to uncover the grisly story - to unravel the layers of thwarted love between the husband, wife, and tormented girl. And as the truth about Eden's past comes to light, so too does Andrew's strange and binding attachment to her reveal itself.

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Breakheart Hill By Thomas H. Cook 1995

From the author hailed as "an important talent, a storytelling writer of poetic narrative power" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) comes a dazzling novel of psychological suspense.  "This is the darkest story I've ever heard." With these haunting words, Thomas H. Cook begins a tale of love and its aftermath, of a town sent reeling from a moment of passionate betrayal. At its center was Kelli Troy and the town of Choctaw, Alabama. And on one hazy summer afternoon decades ago, a searing burst of violence engulfed Breakheart Hill. For one man who knows the truth about those shattering events, it is a memory that would become his awful secret.

Note:  An unforgettable book *

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Down River By John Hart 2007

Adam Chase is passionate and misunderstood, a fighter. When narrowly acquitted of a murder charge, he disappears for five long years: not a clue, not a trace. Now, he's back and nobody knows why--not his family or the cops, not the women he left behind. But Adam has his reasons. When more bodies surface, Adam must unravel a web of deceit and violence so dense it staggers the imagination. Old secrets rise, lives collapse, and more than one person crosses the brink as author Hart probes the timeless, destructive power of deception and vengeance.

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To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee 1960

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. 

To Kill a Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in1960.  It went on to win the Pulitzer prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award winning film, also a classic. 

Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To  Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.  

Now with over 15 million copies in print and translated into ten languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal.  Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story.  Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature. 

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~ The Great River Road - Nottoway Plantation ~

This is Part 4 of my "Great River Road" adventures.
The Great River Road is a collection of state and local roads which follow the course of the Mississippi River through ten states of the United States. They are Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

The Great River Road is not a single road as its name might suggest. It is more accurately described as a designated route, the whole of which consists of connected segments of other named and numbered highways and streets, each maintained by state, county, or local jurisdictions.

The Great River Road has some really fascinating history which you can find lots of information about.

But now, I am going to share with you a little piece of my travels along The River Road. My travels started due to my love of great houses and an interesting book I read about Louisiana. At one time, the great houses were all built along the Mississippi river because it was their way of transporting their crops but also their means of travel and their connection with the other people who lived on the river.

In 2001, I drove the River Road down into Louisiana and stopped at numerous plantations along the way.

I would now like to introduce you to Nottoway Plantation. This was by far the most magnificent plantation house that I visited. The size alone is breathtaking.

Considered the "Jewel" of the River Road Plantations and is the largest remaining antebellum plantation house in the south. It is composed of 64 rooms, seven staircases and five galleries.  It has 165 doors and 200 windows, most of which can also double as doors. Total 53,000 square feet. It was built in the Italianate Style when the era was dominated by Greek Revival architecture. It sits 200 feet behind a Mississippi River Levee and is surrounded by old oak trees, magnolias, pecan trees and sweet olives.

Nottoway survived the Civil War, however damage did occur when a Union gunboat on the Mississippi River attempted to destroy the magnificent house until the gunboat officer realized he had once been a guest there and decided to spare Nottoway.  

It is located in White Castle, Louisiana, and lies between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

These are not my pictures but ones that I found on the web. They are much nicer than my own since I did not have a decent camera at the time.

Clicking on the pictures will expand them to a larger size.

Front of House

Front and Side of House

Side of House

Upper Balcony

White Ballroom

White Ballroom

Music Room

Dining Room

Gentleman's Study

Bedroom

Bedroom

Front Porch

Side of House

Grounds

Grounds

Springtime

Grounds

Cemetery at Night

Watch a Video (the first segment is Nottoway)

Here is the link if you cannot view the YouTube player: Video

You can read about Nottoway Plantation on the Nottoway Plantation Website 

if you would like more information

More to come on my River Road journeys...

Spring Planting ~ 2014 & 2015

Last year at this time, we planted a few trees and bushes. It is always fun to see what a year will do. So here are some pics of our planting from last year and how they bloomed in 2015.

(Clicking on pictures will open the large versions) 

This is a Forest Pansy Redbud tree.  It didn't bloom much this year, but the leaves are beautiful.

Azaleas line one whole side of the house with three camellia bushes, two at each end and one in the middle.  Pretty good first year blooms.

Nuccio's Pearl Camellia. It was a real bloomer.

Flower from the Ack-Scent camellia bush.

This one wins the prize. This is a Chinese Fringe tree. No picture can capture the beauty of this tree.

Our planting from this year (2015)

 

Dwarf Butterfly Bushes - they will only grow to around 3 feet wide and 3 feet high. These are called Tutti Frutti. We've had lots of rain so they are kind of beaten down. The statue is called "Basking In God's Glory".

 

Bottlebrush tree at the far left and then a line of Wax Myrtle or Southern Bayberry bushes. Wax Myrtle bushes grow very fast and will create a privacy hedge.  The berries were used to create Bayberry candles.  They are also a flea and mosquito deterrent because of the citrus odor they emit.