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Blurb:
Joseph dreams of a life beyond the cold, black world of coal he and his family live in. Blackness has seeped into his skin. He fights to keep it from seeping into his soul. He is fortunate to have work, and blessed to be at home with his wife Antoinette, even if home is a gray patch town in the Kentucky hills. But the war between the states threatens to strip that away too. He presses on providing for his family, but tragedy strikes, leaving Joseph to wonder if there is life beyond the Black Rain and whether he has the faith to dream again.
..The story of their family intrigued me from the beginning. I felt every emotion and by the end of it, I was crying, in a good way. I have never read a fictional book that has affected every emotion in me before. I did not want the story to end and I look forward to reading more about Joseph and Antoinette!!
Excerpt
The Coal Fields of
Kentucky
September 1863
"Don't
you be dying on me, Nette. I don't want to be living with out ya," Joseph
Abernathy McCormick whispered as he bathed his wife's face and neck with a cool
cloth and laid the rag back in the bowl of water. He smoothed her sticky hair
from her face and gulped when he felt the heat beneath his fingers. She was
warm. So warm. "Oh, God. Please don't--"
He
couldn't finish the words. Didn't want to think them. They clung to his thoughts.
His wife was sick as was his son, and some in the patch had already died from
the illness.
He
sucked a breath and sat back, trying to keep his eyes on his wife, but long
hours in the mines and long hours sitting up with Nette took their toll. His
lids grew heavy.
He could
close them for just a moment. Just a moment.
"Joseph.
Mr. McCormick."
The
touch of a whisper buzzed in his head. He opened his eyes and, after a few
blinks, a woman came into view.
"Muriel?
Something wrong? Is Nette--" He licked his lips and started out of his
chair.
"No,
your wife is fine." The woman put her hand to his shoulder to stop him.
"I just come to sit with her and the boy so you can go get some
rest."
Joseph
looked at his wife lying there. She looked so serene he didn't want to go. But
Muriel was right. He needed his rest. He couldn't burn the candle at both ends
and expect not to get burned.
He felt
little better than a man crawling out from under a rock when the whistle
sounded the next morning rousing the shift for work. A touch of sleep didn't go
as far as they claimed. He just hoped it would get him through the day. He
dressed and went to see about his wife.
"You'll
be pleased to know their fevers broke finally," Muriel informed him before
he slipped into see his room.
"Thank
you," he told her with a nod.
"Don't
be thankin' me." Muriel smiled. "I believe the Good Lord heard our
prayers."
Joseph
returned her smile and gave another nod before he stepped in with his wife.
He
slipped to the chair near the bed, studying Antoinette, and his sixteen-month-old
son and namesake, Joseph -- Joey. Antoinette held their little boy close and
let him suckle as she lay back and closed her eyes. Joseph should leave and let
her rest. After a couple of nights with a sick boy and her ailing herself, she
deserved it, but he couldn't move. He couldn't tear his gaze from his wife and
son.
