Short Blurb:
Shadow of the Hawk is the story of Sooze Williams who sacrifices everything, including
love, to save her family during the Great Depression.
Back Cover Blurb:
It is May 1932 and life in the timbered rise and fall of Western Arkansas has just gotten
harder for sixteen-year-old Sooze Williams. With debt mounting and both friends and
family fleeing, Sooze is determined to ‘do the right thing.’ She promises her heart to a
well-to-do man believing true love is just another loss along the way.
But when her uncle is murdered and family is accused of the crime, Sooze vows not to
be beaten. Is salvation within her grasp by relying solely on truth, or is it in the security
of her intended’s money? Sooze must decide before it’s too late.
Excerpt from Chapter Three:
As we neared Uncle Ray and Aunt Lissie's farmhouse, the front left wheel, which
was already whopper-jawed, hit a pothole in the road. Smack! The bolster clapped against the wood under our feet, and Cora nearly flew off the wagon seat. I caught her by the brown puffed sleeve of her dress and pulled her back toward me, holding her
tight. Pulling hard on the leather reins, Daddy stopped the wagon. We could hear Uncle
Ray yelling.
"You get off my land, and you stay off, you no-good little thief!"
Busting out the door of the hen house, Henry's friend Benny was running like a
wild man. His black hair was whipping across his face like strings from a wet mop, and
he had his dirty white T-shirt pulled up like a hammock at his belly. It was filled with
eggs.
"Go on, scram!" Uncle Ray came out the door of the hen house, swinging a
leather strap. "If I catch you here again, I'll beat the tar out of you, boy!"
Benny was in a dead-run. As he skidded around the back of our wagon headed for town, I saw a red welt the size of Uncle Ray's leather strap across his cheek.
"What'd he get from you, Ray?" Daddy called.
"He stole my whole batch of eggs!" Uncle Ray walked toward us with one shoulder of his blue bib overalls hanging. He wasn't wearing a shirt underneath to hide his big belly or a hat to cover his balding head. "I knew movin' in this close to town would just invite the hoboes and hooligans."
He stopped at the wagon, reaching up to help Cora down off the seat, and kept right on talking. "But that boy — that loony little two-bit thief — he's the worst of 'em all. If he was stealin' so's he could feed his family, I might look the other way once in a while. But when I get to town later today, I'll bet I see a fresh batch of brown eggs for sale at Huckabee's. All that boy does is sell what he steals from me so's he can gamble and booze."
"It ain't right," Daddy agreed, shaking his head. "It just ain't right. You want me to go get the sheriff and be an eyewitness? A complaint is easy to file."
Author biography:
Author K.S. Jones, whose first name is Karen, has been writing most of her life, usually in stolen moments between raising children, caring for elderly parents, and working a real job. She spent fifteen years writing and researching her Depression-era debut novel, Shadow of the Hawk. During that time, she had short pieces published, but it wasn't until 2014 that her writing took a giant leap forward. One summer morning, an email arrived announcing she had won Southern Writers 2014 Short Story contest.
While reveling in the moment, a second email chimed – a publisher was offering a contract on her novel! That same week, two more publishing offers arrived for the same novel, and she hasn't looked back since. Another novel, a middle-grade fantasy, is now under publisher's review, and she is putting the finishing touches on a third.
