COMING SOON!

My second book, Send Me A Song, will soon be at the publisher. I am excited to bring you another story of family which, like Finding Faith, takes place over a few generations beginning with the founding of our nation.

The story involves the MacKenzie children who come to America on their own as indentures of the Fraser family. The MacKenzie children’s father, along with his wife Isobel and youngest son James, intended to make the voyage. However, Alexander died just months prior. Isobel decided to stay in Ulster, Ireland, with her youngest child James who had contracted his father’s illness. Alexander and his wife Isobel worked in the household of William Fraser and emigrated to Ulster from Scotland with the Fraser family.

We follow the MacKenzie children, Donald, Eleanor, and Duncan, as they travel to Virginia and grow up among the Fraser family. While they are tobacco farmers, the Frasers are not the stereotypical founding family of Virginia. They felt compelled to purchase slaves to be profitable, but their perspective was different. They treated them as family and insisted on teaching them to read, write, and do simple math. They were housed in cottages rather than shacks and encouraged to marry and have families. They sold none, waiting for the nation to make the practice illegal. This, of course, would not happen until much later.

As the story progresses, the MacKenzie children grow up and each goes on to their own future. The book moves forward with the youngest MacKenzie, Duncan, and his family. Duncan marries and has four children. Duncan dies young because of injuries sustained during the French and Indian War. We follow the second generation as we watch the eldest son, still just a child when his father dies, become the man of the house and responsible for running the family farm. The family endures other tragedies and trials as the children move into adulthood and, ultimately, leave Virginia for Tennessee.

The MacKenzies carry their family’s values onto the next generation and become more successful than their grandparents could ever have imagined. Their successes are tempered by wars, illnesses, deaths, and difficult personal situations born out of the very values they were taught by their parents.

This is a story for all generations. It is one of enduring love, trust, and deep conviction. It is my hope that you will choose to read Send Me A Song and to share it with your friends and family. The cover shown on this post may not actually become the cover I will use, so keep checking back. As soon as I have the cover, I will update the photo.