Spring Into Reading with Bitter Honey

Posted by abakersp in Spring Into Reading / 3 Comments

Hello reader friends! Welcome to my Spring Into Reading Event! We’re in the last part of the event, and I have to be honest, I’m kind of sad. This is the very last post. (I’m wiping some tears) I’ve had to much fun learning about new books, new authors, and growing my TBR list. Haven’t you!? Thank you all for joining me on this fun journey. I’m already planning one for next year ?

I’ve got another Caryl McAdoo character visiting today – woohoo!! I love character interviews. Plus, one lucky reader is going to get a chance to win a copy of Bitter Honey!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Bitter Honey (Lockets and Lace Book 22) by [Caryl McAdoo, Sweet Americana]

With God, all things are possible.

But can lost love be found again or two wounded hearts knitted together?

Young love, sweeter than honey, is separated by a natural disaster and turns bitter. After five years, a miracle reunites Samantha Adams and Silas Mercier, but it seems it’s too late. Will love prevail?

Amazon

Excerpt :

A quarter mile out of town, she took his hat off and shook out her hair but didn’t scoot away.

“So, Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit. Didn’t you say God told them if they ate from that tree they’d die?”

“That’s right. And they did. Their spirits died right then. Adam’s body lived on for over nine hundred years, but the most—”

“And you believe that? Nine hundred years?”

“I do. Of course, I do.”

“Humph, sounds pretty farfetched if you ask me. And now I’m supposed to believe it because I got saved? I don’t know, Claude.”

“Don’t get sidetracked with the details. Just let me finish.”

“Sorry. So Adam died but he lived on to be . . . older. Go on.”

“The most important part of him, his spirit, died that very day. That’s why we have to be born again. Because we were all in Adam’s loins when he ate the forbidden fruit.”

She didn’t say anything for too many turns of the wagon’s wheel to count, but the pretty young woman sitting next to him proved pleasant enough on her own.

He had a strong desire to wrap his arms around her and hold on until all the evil that had been done to her vanished, but she might not understand.

INTERVIEW WITH SAMANTHA

Samantha, I’m so glad to have you at ‘A Baker’s Perspective’ today. The author of your story, Caryl McAdoo was telling me you’ve been in two other titles before this one. Why don’t we start by going back, if you’re agreeable to when readers first met you?

Thank you for having me, Jessica. I know Mis’ess McAdoo appreciates it, too. So, are you talking about going all the way back to New York, before we came west? I was only thirteen then. Mama had passed several years before, and Father grieved her so. We were waiting until Aunt Christina’s wedding, then her rotten fiancé just reneged on her and fell in love with another woman—or her money is more like it.

Oh, that’s terrible. I can’t even imagine.

Yes, ma’am. And Father had already sold the brownstone, so she really had no choice but to come with us. It worked out for the best for my little sister, Patricia, because Auntie had been the only mother she’d ever known. We left New York just after New Year’s Day in 1851. The trip was so much fun. We traveled by train to New Orleans, then by steamship up to Missouri. That’s were Father bought the wagon.

That must have been exciting to see all those sights. Did you like New Orleans?

Yes, ma’am, it was, but I actually didn’t see much of New Orleans. You see, my father took Patricia and me out to the Mercier Vineyards a few hours out of the city. He wanted to get some stock from Mister Mercier to add to what he already had from Italy to start his own vineyard in Napa Valley in California.

It must have been wonderful to realize his dream.

I’ll tell you what was truly wonderful . . . meeting Silas Mercier. He was sixteen, and it was love at first sight. I just knew he was the one for me. I so hoped he would have come to see me off at the docks, but he didn’t. I wrote to him though. Sent him letters all along and then in Saint Joseph, I got a journal, and wrote more letters to him in it.

And what was the name of that story?

UNIQUELY COMMON after Aunt Christine. Mis’ess McAdoo likes oxymorons; we have that in common. Anyway, that story ended there in Saint Jo. That’s where I met Remi—Remington Agnus Dalrumple—please don’t tell her I told you her whole name! That’s why she goes by Remi and her bond servant. I knew she was the one the minute I saw her, too.

The one? What do you mean?

I chose her then and there to marry my father. The wagon master wasn’t going to let her go, you see, but I knew she needed to come along and suggested to the Captain that she could ride along with us. Father and his long-time best friend agreed to the arrangement.

So, you all headed west together from Saint Joseph then? What an adventure for you and Patricia!

Yes, ma’am. We had to wait there for the spring grasses to grow high on the prairie for the stock to have food on the way. It certainly all started out like a fun adventure, but day after day, walking most the way, it got quite boring.

And the farther we went—the journey was said to be two thousand miles, and we only averaged twelve to fifteen miles a day—the harder it got. I thought it would never end. Just when I thought we’d made it through the toughest part, the terrain got worse.

We ran out of grasses, and I had to pick up the buffalo . . . um . . . dung is what is was! I called them chips or paddies and tried not to think about it, but we needed them to burn our fires for cooking. We had to cross a desert during the night because it was so hot and there was no water. Nothing should’ve been harder than that, but you should have seen the mountains we faced!

I never thought of the wagon trains like that. You make is sound like a nightmare.

People died all along the way. We lost several in a measles outbreak. That’s when we adopted Debbey, her mother and uncle passed. I have never in my life been so glad to get to California, and I’d looked so forward to having a pile of letters waiting for me in Napa. He was supposed to write to general delivery there, but . . .

I take it there were no letters waiting?

Not even one. I was never more ready for that story to end. Mis’ess McAdoo named it REMI. It was in a different collection, the Prairie Roses, she called it. But I’ll tell you true, Miss Jessica, my broken heart had taken all it could. I just wanted to get on with building our new house and planting our grapevines.

I can imagine you were. How long did it take?

Oh, I suppose we got the essentials done in the first year, but five years passed before my eighteenth birthday! I thought I might be an old maid before Father would let any suitors come calling. Then one day, I was called to the door and could absolutely not believe in a million years who stood there.

This all happened in BITTER HONEY –the new release–and Mis’ess McAdoo warned me not to say too much about it. Spoilers, you know. She did ask me to tell you a little about her, too.

But I will tell you, by the time that man showed up, I had no intentions of leaving my family even though I’d written about moving to New Orleans in my journal. Humph. I was only a child then! No one could hold me to anything I’d said five years ago! Could they?

I’d already decided that anyone I married had to promise not to haul me off far away. That’s why everything got so complicated and turned what had been sweet as honey to about as bitter as anything could get!

And she wanted me to tell you she wants to giveaway my story as an eBook to one of you readers, Miss Jessica.

Aww, thank you so much! I’m so glad we got to chat today 🙂

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning hybrid author Caryl McAdoo prays her story brings God glory. Her best-selling novels have garnered over 1000 5-Star reviews, attesting to the Father’s favor. Readers love her Historical Christian romance family sagas best, but she also writes Christian contemporary romance, Biblical fiction, and for young adults and mid-grade booklovers. They count Caryl’s characters as family or very close friends. The prolific writer loves singing the new songs He gives her almost as much as penning tales—hear a few at YouTube! Married to Ron over fifty years, she shares four children and eighteen grandsugars. The McAdoos live in the woods south of Clarksville, seat of Red River County in far Northeast Texas, waiting expectantly for God to open the next door. 


LINKS:

Amazon / BookBub / Website / Newsletter / Facebook / YouTube

If you check our Caryl on YouTube, you can hear Caryl sing her New Songs!

GIVEAWAY

a Rafflecopter giveaway

What was your favorite part of the interview?

3 responses to “Spring Into Reading with Bitter Honey

  1. April Morin

    I absolutely love how the interview is done with the character rather than the author. I haven’t seen that done on any other website.

  2. Danielle Hammelef

    I’ve read character interviews before and always enjoy them as I get a sneak peek into the character. I enjoyed the part where she describes the journey and needing to collect buffalo chips for fuel.

  3. Kay Garrett

    Enjoyed reading the interview with Samantha. Especially when she talked of knowing Remi was ‘the one’ and the wagon train ride.

    Can’t wait for the opportunity to read “Bitter Honey”. Thank you for the chance to win a copy!