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Welcome - A Blog About My Book Series, Appalachia, and Healing

  • Writer: ronisharp
    ronisharp
  • Feb 13, 2018
  • 4 min read

Updated: Apr 18, 2018


Welcome! I am so glad you decided to spend a few moments with my blog.


As an introduction, let me say the picture shared with this post is my wonderful husband, David Lee Sharp, and me. We call my husband D.L. I'm right-brained and creative (not technical), so I credit this wonderful man with keeping me in functioning computers to allow me to do this work. I will always be grateful to him for that.

Why Am I Blogging?

I am not the type who holds my cards close to my vest, as people often say in the Appalachian Mountains my family comes from. Therefore, I will be honest - one of my goals is to introduce people to my book series in the hope that it will become more popular. I also have a less self-serving motive. My hope is that what I share will help people heal from many of the things I worked hard to heal from.

My book is fiction, but it is inspired by many Appalachian stories that I was told or witnessed. There are many beautiful things about the Appalachian Mountains even though there are many hardships. In some clans, the beauty outweighs the hardships. In other clans, the hardships break people. I have heard and witnessed stories about places where the people became so broken that the book and movie "Deliverance" do not seem improbable to me.

Some people I love came from the places that are that broken and worked hard to climb higher. My book series is a fictionalized compilation of the inspiration that came from hearing and seeing those stories.

This description of the first book in my series, "The Blood Moon Sealed My Fate," is a good explanation of some of the hardships: Imagine living in a culture where a blood moon is an indication of the end of time. Imagine a child who was raised in that culture witnessing a blood moon minutes before her death. Imagine that child blaming her death on that moon instead of an overzealous parent who believed that sparing the rod would spoil the child. Imagine children growing up handicapped because of parents who took it upon themselves to punish their children to the point of physical disfigurement. "The Blood Moon Sealed My Fate" tells the story of a young boy who experienced many of those horrific acts, many of them justified by the religion of his parents and their pastor. This dark but captivating tale of physical, mental, verbal, and religious abuse comes partially from a true story the author was entrusted with; however, she chose to fictionalize the book to protect the guilty.

It was not by accident that I used the word climb higher instead of rise higher a couple of paragraphs back. It is a rocky climb that is definitely not easy when someone escapes a toxic situation. This description of the second book in my series, "Escape Under A Waning Crescent Moon" is a good explanation of some of the hardships a person faces in the early stages of escape and recovery: Book One of "The Blood Moon Series", "The Blood Moon Sealed My Fate," told the story of a boy named Eamon was was the victim of severe physical, psychological, and religious abuse at the hands of his parents and the community pastor in the Appalachian Mountains. This second book in the series tells the story of Eamon escaping to the city and learning to survive the jungle of inner city poverty. His continuing story is somewhat brighter than his childhood. Even though the handicaps from his child abuse and the illiteracy that were common for the mountains create continuing struggles, he slowly creates a better life for the family he creates in the city.

Many hardships are faced by people escaping toxic situations. Since I am a member of the clans who told the stories that inspired these fictionalized books, I had to do some climbing myself. My goal for this blog, besides increasing the popularity of my book, is to tell some of the ways I successfully climbed out of toxic situations in the hope that it will help other people who need to or are making that climb.

My goal is to share one post per week. This week, I will share two posts, because I want to share the resource list I compiled. All of the resources on this list I feel are trustworthy, because they helped me or someone else who inspired my fictionalized books. Please take a look at my next post (which will be posted tomorrow if you are seeing this on the day this is posted) to see that resource list.

Before I close, I will show you those cards I never hold close to my vest again (I'm the definition of an open book even though life has taught me that is not always wise or safe). I do desire to sell books, especially since that will help me fund my work of educating about how to escape toxic environments. Therefore, I am going to end by providing the Amazon links where those books can be purchased.



 
 
 

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