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Today on my blog I have the Trails in the Sand Book Blitz. On my stop there is a spotlight, excerpt, and giveaway.
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Trails in the Sand follows environmental writer
Caroline Carlisle as she reports on endangered sea turtles during the Deepwater
Horizon oil spill. As she delves into the story, she uncovers secrets about the
past that threaten to destroy her family unless she can heal the hurts from a
lifetime of lies.
Her journey reveals the truth behind mysteries that have plagued her family for
three generations.
Lost journals, a fake tablecloth, and nesting sea turtles lead her to discover
why her uncle committed suicide, why her sister developed anorexia, and why her
mother only wanted acceptance from those she loved.
Caroline and her husband Simon discover love lasts despite decades of
separation when he was married to Caroline’s sister. Caroline’s niece Jodi,
caught in the crossfire of family tensions and lies, struggles to find a way to
forgive the past so she can move into the future.
Trails in the Sand explores the struggles to restore balance and peace, in
nature and in a family, as both head to disaster. Through it all, the ancient
sea turtle serves as a reminder that life moves forward despite the best
efforts to destroy it.
Excerpt:
PROLOGUE
1956 –
St. George
Island , Florida
Alex and Gladdy Stokley sat on the sand as the
reddish glow from the setting sun disappeared and left the beach shrouded in
darkness. The light of day remained only in memory as the waves rhythmically
beat upon the shore where the brother and sister sat in silence.
“Moon’s rising,” Alex said half an hour after
the sun left the horizon. “See the light edging its way over there? It’s going
to be full tonight.”
The tide was going out as they sat on a linen
tablecloth that served as a blanket; they smuggled it out of the family’s beach
house as they escaped the rage of their father an hour earlier. Alex produced a
crumpled pack of cigarettes from the front pocket of his white T-shirt. He
cupped his hands to light the match and then the cigarette. He pulled a second
one from the pack, lit it from the already glowing stick, and handed it to his
sister. Gladdy touched her brother’s hand before taking the offering.
“Everything’s going to work out,” Gladdy said.
“You’ll see. Daddy will forget all about it once he goes back to work on
Monday.”
“He’s not going to forget, Gladdy. Not this,”
Alex said. “And neither will I. Do you think you can forget it ever happened?”
“I can try. You can try. Let’s just put it out
of our minds as if it never happened. Please, Alex. We have to.”
“It won’t work. It’s hopeless,” Alex said.
“Look,” Gladdy poked her brother who was older
by ten months.
She pointed to the edge of the shoreline only
feet away from where they sat on the sand. The light from the rising moon
illuminated the beach in a soft white bath.
“It’s a loggerhead,” Alex said as a sea turtle
lumbered out of the ocean and laboriously began its march to the dune line.
“You can tell by its big head.”
“I bet it’s going to lay eggs,” Gladdy
whispered.
They sat motionless as the turtle, not more than
fifty feet away, pulled itself through the sand. The loggerhead moved slowly
but steadily, using first the front right and then the left rear flippers to
pull it forward. Then it repeated the action with the other diagonal flippers.
Its march from the sea was distinct from the other species of turtles that came
ashore in Florida
The female loggerhead, so graceful as it floated
and swam in the ocean, now tromped through the sand dragging nearly 300 pounds
of body weight. Every few minutes, it would stop and dig its snout into the
sand.
“She’s testing the temperature,” Alex said.
“That’s exactly how it was described in that book Daddy threw in the trash
tonight.”
Alex read any book he could find about the ocean.
Archie Carr just published a book about the sea turtles, and Alex checked the
book out of the library in Calico, where the Stokleys lived, before they came
to St. George
Island
“We do not read at the table,” Dr. Stokley said
when he returned. “You have the manners of a heathen and the sense of a moron.
You never fail to disappoint me.”
“But that was a library book,” Alex said.
“All the more reason not to have it at the
dinner table,” Dr. Stokley said. “You’ll have to tell the librarian you lost
it, and earn the money to pay for it.”
When the turtle reached the edge of the sea oats
and grasses protruding from the dunes, she swept the sand with all four
flippers before using her front flippers to push sand out of a large area.
The loggerhead kept rotating her body around the
area until a place big enough for her body indented the sand. She used her
cupped rear flippers as shovels and began to prepare the cavity for the eggs.
After digging for what seemed like an eternity
to the teenagers, the ancient creature placed itself in the body pit with its
rear end just at the edge of the cavity. They watched as three eggs dropped
into the hole followed by a clear thick liquid. The process was repeated over
and over again.
“That’s mucus to keep moisture in the nest while
the eggs incubate,” Alex said. “Are you counting how many eggs she’s laid? The
book said they can lay up to 200 in one nest.”
“I’m up to 82,” Gladdy said. “There’s 83 and
84.”
After counting 124 eggs, they watched as the sea
turtle filled in the cavity with its rear flippers and then swept the area in
an effort to disguise what lay beneath the surface.
When the turtle finished her job, nearly two
hours after she came from the sea, she began the slow return back to the ocean.
Alex rose from the sand and followed the loggerhead.
“Alex, what are you doing? You can’t go swimming
after dark – the undertow is too strong.”
“Did you know sea turtles always return to lay
their eggs on the beach where they were hatched?” Alex said as he walked
backwards into the sea following the trail of the female loggerhead.
“The eggs will hatch in about two months,
Gladdy. Be sure to come down here every night and wait for them to emerge so
you can help them go home. Remember 124 eggs and remember the location.”
Alex turned toward the ocean and kept walking
until the sea engulfed him, and he went under.
“Alex, come back,” Gladdy yelled out over the
surf, but the only answer came from the sound of the waves lapping the beach.
“We’ll find a way.”
Gladdy pulled the corners of the tablecloth up around
her shoulders and waited for her brother to reappear. The waves came back to
shore time after time, but as she sat transfixed in her spot on the beach, Alex
never returned with them.
Book Links:
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P.C.
Zick’s career as a writer began in 1998 with the publication of her first
column in a local paper. By day, she was a high school English teacher, but
atnight and on vacations, she began writing novels and working as a freelance
journalist. By 2001, she left teaching and began pursuing a full-time gig as a
writer. She describes herself as a "storyteller" no matter the genre.
She writes three blogs. She’s working on her sixth novel, Native Lands. Live
from the Road was her first venture into self-publishing in 2012. Trails in the
Sand followed in January 2013. She’s also re-issued two novels previously
traditionally published.
She also writes nonfiction. From Seed to Table is a collection of blog posts
about gardening and preserving produce. She’s also published her great
grandfather’s Civil War journal, Civil War Journal of a Union Soldier.
Her blog and her novels contain the elements most dear to her heart, ranging
from love to the environment. She believes in living lightly upon this earth
with love, laughter, and passion.
She resides in Pennsylvania
Stalker Links:
Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Jaidis for letting me participate in this book blitz. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.
~Sabrina
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