STORK BITE
by
L.K. SIMONDS
Genre: Historical Fiction / Southern Fiction
Date of Publication: November 30, 2020
Number of Pages: 359 pages
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“Everything has to be reconciled eventually.”
Caddo Parish, 1913. On an October morning, a Klansman confronts seventeen-year-old David Walker at a hidden oxbow lake where he has gone to hunt. David accidentally kills the man and hides the crime. His determination to protect his family from reprisal drives him far from home and into manhood.
Shreveport, 1927. Cargie (rhymes with Margie) Barre and Mae Compton are two vastly different young women, but both are defying convention to reach for their dreams. The men in Cargie’s and Mae’s lives help and hinder them in more ways than one. After years in hiding, David Walker finally resurfaces, and we discover the past is never as far from the present as it seems.
Praise
“Simonds is a wonderfully talented author and evokes the South in astonishing detail in Stork Bite, making us feel we’re sitting in on a long, sumptuous, serial film production. But don’t think it’s mere eye candy–like the best period dramas, there’s plenty of social commentary here. Highly recommended!” Linore Rose Burkard, author of Regency Romance and Contemporary Suspense.
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I was tootling along in this book and then, BAM, my heart was sucked out of my body, and the range of emotions I felt drained my soul…in a good way of course.
This book spans a century and what a story it tells. The story begins in 1913 with David’s story of accidentally killing a Klansman who was giving him a hard time just because of the color of his skin. As we know from history, had David been caught he wouldn’t have lived long to tell his tale. He was rather ingenious in his steps to cover up the crime for someone that was that young. But the burden that he carried knowing he took someone’s life couldn’t have been easy. I never understood why he didn’t feel like he could go home to his family, but perhaps it was shame or the fear of bringing his family into a situation that he created. David does manage to survive and is taken in by a kind family that teaches him things he never would have learned in his old life. But he brings them his own type of wisdom and knowledge. The impact that they make on each other spans a lifetime.
The story then jumps forward to 1927 and we meet Cargie and Mae. I really liked Cargie. She was a smart and determined woman that was not going to let race hold her back. She knew for many years that she wanted to be a bookkeeper and she lands a job with Bill Cole who owns a dry cleaning business. I loved how Cargie came in and basically started organizing his receipts and books without being formally hired. I had to chuckle because I work for a CPA and we know how messy some accounting records can be for businesses. Bill Cole doesn’t seem to mind and he and Cargie become quite a formidable duo when it comes to his business. She does teach him a few things about keeping his book straight. At the same time, he reaches Cargie in a way he doesn’t even realize through his journal that he wrote during the war. Something about his words draws her into his experiences and touches her soul.
Cargie is married to Thomas and they have three children over the span of the novel. We learn a bit about Thomas, but there was probably so much more to him than he was given credit. But there is a reason for that and you discover that reason in the last 20% of the story. Thomas was a renaissance man and could seem to do anything he set his mind to doing. He was supportive of Cargie and her career and you could say he was something of a house husband. I enjoyed seeing his love for Cargie and his family, even his mother-in-law that he called “Pretty Mama.”
Mae was from a small town in Texas and wanted nothing more than to attend college at Centenary College in Shreveport. This was the late 20s when women usually ended up married with children, but she wanted so much more than that. She found it but it wasn’t an easy road when certain truths are revealed. I didn’t want to like Mae, but by the end, she had convinced me otherwise. There were several men in her life that taught her various things and helped move her along in life and discover her dreams and desires.
Because this novel spans a century, there are losses that are felt by many characters. I think my heart broke a little each time someone died or learning of their situations knowing the end was near. I don’t want to spoil any of the journies that the characters take, but it is humbling for some of them. I just wanted to reach out and hug each and every one of them and let them know that it would all be ok.
While the end of the book brings us back to the beginning, I did think that this could have been three different books and expanded even more on their individual lives. However, considering how the novel ends, I’m not sure that could be accomplished without leaving cliffhangers or spoiling the next book.
This is a book I didn’t expect to touch me as it did and the journey of the characters, the rich southern traditions, and the evolution of civil rights make this a novel worth reading.
We give this book 5 paws up.
L. K. Simonds is a Fort Worth local whose debut novel, All In, was published in 2019.
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ONE WINNER
(US only):
Signed Paperbacks of ALL IN and STORK BITE
Plus $50 Visa Gift Card.
Giveaway ends Midnight, CST, February 5, 2021
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You are most welcome. I think that diary was intriguing and it was a look into what someone might have endured during the war (any war!).
Wow! Your love for this book pops out of your review! I can’t wait to read it. Thanks for the post!
What a lovely review. . .thank you, Leslie!!! Special thanks for writing about so many different aspects of the story. I’ve been waiting for someone to mention Bill Cole’s diary, which played such a big role in Cargie’s life and in her life-changing friendship with Bill. Crafting those diary entries was one of my favorite parts of writing the book. It was inspired by a much briefer WWI diary kept by my mother’s uncle, who – you guessed it – owned a dry cleaners in Shreveport. I’m so, so, so glad you enjoyed the story!