NBTM Virtual Tour + #Giveaway: The Unveiling of Polly Forrest by Charlotte Whitney @CWhitneyAuthor @GoddessFish

 

The Unveiling of Polly Forrest

by Charlotte Whitney

GENRE: Historical Mystery

BLURB:

Rural Michigan, 1934.

During the throes of the Great Depression Polly marries for money. After her husband Sam dies in a bizarre farm accident, new bride Polly assumes she is set to pursue her dream of opening a hat-making business. Instead, she becomes the prime suspect in Sam’s murder. Secrets abound and even Polly’s family can’t figure out the truth.

Purchase The Unveiling of Polly Forrest on Amazon

Excerpt:

Reverend Wesley Johnson

Sunday, June 24, 1934

This morning, finding myself at the pulpit I looked down at the congregation, I no longer felt rancor about our family’s current situation. I told Willard’s story veiled in anonymity, his mother being too ill to attend church, anyway. I mentioned the problems in my own family and the unknowns we are facing. Somewhere in the sermon I recited the list of sick members and the fact that right now almost all of us were facing challenges we’d never anticipated.

I remarked how we all wanted to be facing decisions about whether to electrify our houses and put in an indoor bathroom. Instead, we were facing decisions about how long we could hold on, and whether we’d lose our crops if rain didn’t come, what we’d eat this winter if our gardens didn’t produce and what we’d do if we lost our farms. I don’t think anyone expected me to be this specific about our collective worries.

“Lord, lift these worries from us. Lift them high above us. Lord, lift these worries from us.”

Next I asked everyone to take a minute and count their blessings.

“Instead of focusing on what we don’t have this morning, think about what we do have and be thankful. What are you happy about today?”

“I need an hour,” my friend John Newson piped up. Everyone laughed.

By the time we started our last hymn, “Joyful, Joyful,” there was a smile on every face, including mine.

Interview with Charlotte Whitney

Q: Tell us something about your new release that is NOT in the blurb.

A: You will find yourself immersed in depression-era stories that accurately depict the times. Families were forced off their farms to travel away, to who-knows-where, often ending up in strange places without a place to sleep. Parents couldn’t assure that their children would have enough to eat. Often large families were split up when a crisis arose, some children being sent to relatives, and older ones left to fend for themselves. Even families fortunate enough to stay on their farms found daily life challenging. They gardened and put up all their own food. Coal furnaces only warmed the ground floor of the farmhouse, while the children slept upstairs. Rarely was there indoor plumbing so most people carried pails of water into the house from a central well. Everyone used an outhouse. And, to everyone’s consternation, no one knew if or when the depression would end.

Q: What advice would you give to a new writer?

A: Write, write, write, and keep writing. You’ll improve. Also, read voraciously and experience all the amazingly different writing styles. It’s important to read in your genre so you know what is currently selling. Learn from other authors how they approach their material and how they craft their stories.

Q: Do you have any tattoos? Where? When did you get them?

A: Yes. But you aren’t going to believe this. I have one on my intestine. My gastroenterologist needed to mark a particular site in order to examine it the following year. I doubt if it's pretty or required much artistic skill. I find the word “tattoo” interesting. It comes from the Pacific Samoan word “tatua” that mimics the tapping sound of the tools used during tattooing. They used turtle shells and boar’s teeth to tap the pigment into the skin. Another meaning of the word is that of military tattoos, most often performed in Scotland, the most well-known one being The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It is believed to have originated from the Samoan word via the Dutch language when in the seventeenth century Drum Regiments played a tapping sound as a signal to pub owners to turn off the taps of their ale kegs and close the pubs. Then the soldiers would get to the barracks at a reasonable hour and get a good night’s sleep.

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Charlotte Whitney is the author of historical fiction set during the Great Depression in the rural Midwest. Her most recent work, The Unveiling of Polly Forrest, a stand-alone historical mystery follows her groundbreaking novel, Threads A Depression-Era Tale, which was met with both critical acclaim and commercial success. She received a master’s degree in English at the University of Michigan, and after a short stint of teaching at two community colleges, worked at the University of Michigan where she was an associate director of the Lloyd Scholars for Writing and the Arts. Currently living in Arizona with her husband and two dogs she enjoys hiking, bicycling, swimming, and yoga.

Connect with Charlotte Whitney

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Giveaway:

$50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC

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