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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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.
"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
In 1913, a teenage boy, David Walker, shot one of the “Bourbon Democrats” his grandfather had warned him to stay away from in their small town. Once the identity of the man killed was discovered, the teen decides it’s best he leaves home to protect his family. He does so by running and reinventing himself.
Fast forward 14 years and we are introduced to two young women, Cargie and Mae, on vastly different paths to reach their dreams. David resurfaces only to realize you cannot outrun your past.
The tension-filled opening drew me into David’s story. I must be honest when I read books with heavy racial overtones, I am always a bit hesitant. You never quite know how the author will handle telling/creating/developing the story of characters that are of different ethnicities. However, the author accurately captured the lessons and reminders that parents of black boys and girls must tell our children so that they make it home each day.
"Don’t eat! Don’t say! Don’t touch!"
Even through all that, there may be a scenario that we can’t fathom one such as the situation young David Walker found himself in on that fateful day. I liked the detail provided on David’s life after that fateful day as well as the nods to one of our classic tales, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
With the introduction of Cargie and then Mae, the author did a great job of capturing their determination to be more than what society at the time thought they should or had the right to be. . I could plainly see how Cargie’s story intersected with “Tom,” but it took me a bit to figure out how Mae’s presence played a part in the overall story. The story waned a bit for me with the introduction of Mae’s story,.
This story moved at a moderate pace with a very well-developed cast of characters and plot. The three storylines merged, in the end, to make sense and bring things full circle with an emotional ending. There are a few social issues raised in this story, but they are handled well and with care and accuracy. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a bit of history with a bit of emotionally charged drama.
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Great review! It sounds like Simonds did a lot right in this book that makes for an engaging read. Thanks for sharing it!
ReplyDeleteThank you SO much for this review. It was validating that I made some right choices.
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