Guest Author
November 2001
author of Healer's Daughter
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Author bio:
This month's featured book giveaway:
La'Nelle Gambrell's love of writing began in elementary school when she won an essay contest. That was all the encouragement she needed and she's been writing ever since. A voracious reader of romance since her early teens when she used to 'borrow' romance books from her aunt's keeper shelf, she dreamed that someday she would write stories of love and adventure just as wonderful.
But, as it often happens in the real world, real life intervenes and after a few mis-starts in the wrong direction La'Nelle found a niche. With a background in graphic design and journalism she landed the position of art director for KIII-TV, and ABC afiliate in Corpus Christi, Texas. After a few years she left to begin a freelance career working from her home. After all isn't that what everyone dreams of, a successful home based business of their own? She soon realized it was time to open a 'real' office when one day she found herself, still in her bathrobe at 6:00 in the evening, bent over her drafting table working on a deadline while a client peered over her shoulder.
As the owner of La'Nelle Gambrell Advertising/Art in Corpus Christi and later in Houston, Texas she spent her early years concentrating on building her business. Her expertise in corporate and logo design helped build a client list that included banks, travel agencies, commuter airlines, television and radio stations, power companies and two Texas State Senators. She wrote everything from television, newspaper and magazine ad copy to press releases and speeches. She produced her own television and radio spots, edited countless newsletters and won numerous Addy awards. She even had her own weekly television show 'Computer Football Forecast' on the local CBS affiliate and somehow in the midst of it all ... she met and married the love of her life.
Now, twenty-four years later and still married to the man she refers to as the best looking pilot in Texas, La'Nelle, husband Joe and their animal menagerie live in East Texas on a private lake where she finally has the time to pursue the other love of her life. Writing ... this time from the heart.
(Excerpted from La'Nelle Gambrell's biography on her website, www.lanelle.com.)
Excerpt from Healer's Daughter:
From across the lake, high on a bluff, someone watched Abecka. With the memory of a body burning in his mind and a ball of anger churning in his gut, he watched ... and waited.
Stained glass artist Abecka Blackmore thought she was safe on Long Cane. Safe from Judson, her faith healing stepfather and his sinister brand of salvation, safe from the tortured memories of her childhood. And now that Clayton had come back into her life she was beginning to realize a future that she had only dreamed of. But God's Rolling Thunder Tent Revival was about to go on the road again and she had a choice to make -- go with it or lose Long Cane ... and the child.
(Taken from La'Nelle Gambrell's website, www.lanelle.com.)
The winner of a free autographed copy of Healer's Daughter
be the drawn from all the emails sent to La'Nelle Gambrell
during the month of November.
Prologue
A blistering Texas sun blazed down on the silver topped Air Stream travel trailer. Inside, seventeen year-old Abecka, the preacher's daughter lay stretched across her bed watching the revival tent go up. She was daydreaming again. Wondering if she'd really go to hell for what she was thinking about Clayton Richards. It was a fantasy that occupied much of her day and a dream that she lived most nights. A dream so real that just thinking about it caused a stab of longing that pierced her heart and sent a delicious shudder through her body.
From her window she could see Clayton and several other roustabouts sweating and shirtless setting the tent stakes. In perfect rhythm they swung their mallets to the cadence of the boss canvasman's voice. "Then down we go, around . . . and h'up. Then down we go, around . . . and h'up." She watched as Clay lifted the big mallet in an arc then let it drop to the head of the stake, each stroke pounding the stake a little further into the dry ground. The muscles in his back rippled and pulsed with every movement.
Abecka closed her eyes and remembered the thrill of his lips as they'd pressed then crushed her own. She shivered in the heat.
Almost too hot to move she thought as she turned onto her side and looked up at the cloudless sky. Off to the West a darkness hugged the distant horizon. A really good rain that's what we need, cool this place off a bit. She looked around at the unevenness of the site Judson had chosen. He must have had a few before he picked this one, if it rains God's Rolling Thunder Tent Revival is going to turn into one giant mud hole .
She listened to the hum of the oscillating fan as it made its half-room sweep, its brass blades sliced the hot air and swirled a warm breeze across her back. She must have dozed off because when she opened her eyes and looked out the window all the men were gone and the sky had begun to grow dark. Judson drove up and skidded to a stop next to one of the tractor-trailer rigs. He jumped out and slammed the door of his new Cadillac shut just as the first fat raindrops splatted on its roof. Muttering under his breath he stomped off toward his own trailer at the end of the row. He was carrying a brown paper bag, his fist wrapped around the gathered top. Abecka knew only too well what that meant. Too late she tried to duck behind the curtain when he passed but he caught the movement and turned and fixed her with a repulsive smile.
Chapter 1 The tall, broad shouldered man stood up and walked to the edge of the bluff. He stretched and yawned, then reached over to adjust the telescope. The yellow dog looked up from the edge of the sleeping bag and swept his tail from side to side in a lazy, good-morning greeting.
Much to head-heavy for it's lean trunk, a giant willow creaked and groaned against a brief gust of wind. It was the same sound the man had heard when he'd tripped and fallen against the body and sent it swaying in a half-moon arc. The slender rope straining with it's dead weight had see-sawed itself into the thick oak beam and the swollen, plum-colored face had swung back and forth and around and back, with a Creeeaak . . . rraaak, creeeaak --
Suddenly the dog sat up and cocked his head then bounded off through the brush toward a sound that only he could hear.
* * * A flash of light from across the lake caught Abecka's attention. She looked beyond her sketch on the drafting table and out the window of the rail car studio. Dismissing the momentary distraction, her gaze swept past the willow trees gripping the bank and leaning out over the water, past the honeysuckle-covered boat house and the coots diving in the shallows near the tall cane. As her thoughts turned inward her eyes slowly came into focus on the windowpane and the reflection of a pleasant face smiling back at her.
Startled by the sudden apparition she felt a bit embarrassed that she had not immediately recognized the face as her own. As she studied the image in the glass Abecka realized she was smiling a real, honest-to-goodness smile. Not the forced, pasty kind of smile she'd gotten used to wearing so people would stop asking how she was doing, not the sad, half-smile that Mayree and Julianna saw so often but a real, natural, glad-to-be-alive-and-doin'-what-I'm-doin' kind of smile. I think things are finally coming together. The smile widened.
As quickly as the thought formed and solidified another leaped forward, writhing with determination and anxious to spew forth the guilt and pain always lurking just beneath the surface. The nighttime girl demanded equal time.
"No!" She said out loud. Not now, I'm not going to think about that today! And with practiced effort and brute force she willed the memory back into its secret place and summoned forth her mental list of 'things to do today.'
I need at least five more pieces of glass for the show. Abecka looked around the studio and began to take an imaginary inventory. At least a couple of them need to be really big and impressive. I've been wanting to start on that fishing heron design I've been thinking about but that's going to take some time. I guess I can always 'borrow' the big leaded waterfall piece that's hanging in the living room but I don't want to sell it and I hate to label anything 'private collection.' That always makes you look as if you haven't been in the business long enough to put a show together. But if I do the heron piece and take the waterfall piece, then I'll probably have enough time to do nine or ten of the glass and shell pieces. They're fun to do, fairly quick, and big sellers too. Nobody else is doing stained glass designs with driftwood and seashells. At least I haven't seen any . . . yet.
A crunching sound outside the window caught Abecka's attention, she looked up to see Julianna hopscotching up the stepping stone walkway. Pups, their latest stray bounded along at her side.
The door opened and a smiling face preceded by a curly mop of dark hair peeped cautiously into the room.
"Can I come in, are you working?"
"Only my prettiest sister may enter my private chamber at such an early hour. And yes, of course I'm working." Abecka kidded.
"I'm your only sister," Julianna giggled as she closed the studio door behind her. "I can never tell if you're working or just thinking. And that reminds me, it was really embarrassing yesterday when you told my new doctor I was your smartest sister."
"OK, if you like, next time I'll tell her you're my dumbest sister. " Abecka kidded. "Also, thinking is working, at least for me it is. Now why have you chosen to violate the cardinal 'thou shalt not disturb before noon' rule?"
"As I recall," replied Julianna in her best imitation of an upper crust accent, "there’s an exception to that rule and I have come to announce an exception. Anne just drove up. Do you want me to tell her to come on out to the studio or do you want to come up to the house? Mayree's been baking all morning and she just took two loaves of banana bread out of the oven—"
"Tell Anne she can come if she comes bearing banana bread, and tell her I just made a fresh pot of coffee. And Jule . . . thanks for the messenger service." Abecka smiled broadly then puckered and air-smooched a noisy kiss in her direction.
Abecka disliked being disturbed in the mornings and frowned upon visitors before noon, she didn't have a phone in the studio for just that reason. Anne knows my schedule so she must have a good excuse, Abecka reasoned as she watched Anne come up the walkway towards the studio. I wonder what it could be?
"Anne, you know you just come out here because you like to see me bleed, admit it," joked Abecka as she held the door open to Anne and the luscious smelling, tea towel covered plate she was carrying.
"Actually," said Anne, "I thought if I came early enough maybe I'd catch you before you started slicing yourself up, was I wrong? Am I too late?"
"No I'm just doing some sketching this morning I'm not cutting glass. I need a few new, really original pieces. She held up both hands and wiggled her fingers into quotation marks. "The San Antonio River Walk Show is coming up, remember we talked about it? It's a biggie and I usually do pretty well there. Have you decided to go with me and take some of your paintings?"
"Yeah I've about decided to. Oh what the heck, I'll give it a try."
Anne sat the plate of banana bread atop a foot high stack of wildlife magazines on the corner of Abecka's desk, the only available surface not occupied by pieces of glass or glass cutting paraphernalia. "It's beautiful in here," she said as she twirled and completed a circle. "Like being in the center of a rainbow. Windows everywhere and all of them filled with stained glass. You must have a few hundred pieces in here Abecka, why do you need more for the show?"
"Well most are really bad early pieces, some are chipped or have a broken section that needs to be replaced and a lot of them were cut from commercial patterns and I don't do that anymore. I've been designing all my own pieces for quite awhile now. I wish I could buy back every piece of glass I ever cut from those old patterns. They're sooooo bad. Now that I think of it, you have quite a bit of that early stuff don't you Annie dear? Want to make some easy money?"
"No I'm quite happy with every piece of stained glass you've ever given me. But I did come over to try to get you to spend some money. Today’s auction day, if you're really serious about getting a horse for Julianna now's the time to start looking. Prices are way down because of the drought. Besides I've been wanting to meet this guy Ed that owns the auction barn. Mayree say's he's been crazy about you forever. She says he's really good looking too.""
"Ed is just a family friend, I'm not interested in him in any other way. Besides I don't know if I'm ready to buy a horse just yet, Anne. I wanted to think about it for a while then look around some then--"
"Come on Abecka, Julianna would probably like to have a horse sometime within the next few years, maybe even this year. So what do you say we'll start out easy, we'll just start the looking part today," Anne joked. "I came early so we don't have to leave for another hour, that way you'll have plenty of time to adjust to the idea. Come on we'll just look, OK?"
Next few years? Abecka thought. Who knows where we'll be in the next few years. Her heart ached at the thought of having to leave Long Cane. But I guess it wouldn't hurt anything to get away for a couple of hours.
"Welllll, OK." She replied. It was an old joke between them that Abecka took forever to make a decision and then another couple of years to follow through. She was as reserved and cautious as Anne was daring and impetuous. Even so the two women had been close friends ever since Anne had moved back to Texas four years ago.
Brazelton had been Anne's first home. When she was five years old her parents had divorced and she and her Mother moved back East leaving behind the South Texas ranch that bordered the Western perimeter of Long Cane. A child of high-rises and taxi cabs, Anne took a leave of absence from her job with a well known Ad agency to return to Texas and help her aging father recover from a serious heart attack. The few months she'd planned to stay had turned into four years. Her love of the land, into a passion as compelling as Abecka's.
She and Abecka had run into each other at a spaghetti dinner fund-raiser for a local politician, her first outing after returning to Brazelton. Literally run into each other. They both breasted a plate of spaghetti and meatballs after rounding a corner and colliding head on.
As different in appearance as in temperament Abecka, with long dark-blonde hair and dazzling blue eyes and Anne, her short black hair in a spiky, sculptured cut and dark brown eyes to match, both promptly sat down in the grass and laughed themselves silly.
While cleaning up in the women's room they discovered they both shared the same birthday, July 3rd, although born in different years. Anne was then twenty-eight years old and Abecka was twenty-four. They also shared a craving for chocolate that bordered on maniacal and a mutual love and respect for wildlife and the environment.
Anne and Abecka had become close friends in the last four years and their friendship was reflected in their conversation. The talk flowed quickly and easily between them as they sat together eating freshly baked banana bread and sipping coffee from heavy, hand made racu mugs, both of which bore the slight imperfections of rejected art found in every artists home and studio.
The bright green railroad car was an ideal stained glass studio. Rows of windows along the length of the car on both sides allowed the filtered sunlight to blink and bounce its way through the layers of multicolored glass. Refracted colors jerked and flashed across the walls of the studio like marionettes dancing in a kaleidoscope.
The rail car had belonged to Abecka's stepfather Judson Blackmore and was used as an advance car for the revival back in the early days. Now completely refurbished and sitting under the shade of a big sycamore tree it was a silent testimony of a bygone era when a traveling tent revival had been the next best thing to the circus coming to town.
Faintly visible under several coats of green paint the words were still there on the side of the car. Big black letters with curlicued serifs and gold outlines spelled out God's Rolling Thunder Tent Revival, with Reverend Judson Blackmore, God's own messenger! The deaf shall hear, the blind shall see and the lame shall walk!
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What people are saying about Healer's Daughter:
Bookstores abound with predictable, boring tales and most of the time readers can gauge the outcome of a book by the second chapter. But from the first few lines I knew Healer’s Daughter would be different. Healer's Daughter, a romantic suspense by La'Nelle Gambrell, is a tale of unexpected surprises, unlikely heroes and heroines, and unusual backdrops such as the roadside carnival-like atmosphere of the tent revivals, where much of the story takes place.
La'Nelle Gambrell masterfully portrays a remarkable heroine, Abecka, her morally-deficient faith-healing stepfather, the Rev. Judson Blackmore, and Clayton, Abecka's friend and who is unaware of the secrets that plague her life. The story also brooches subjects that many other authors avoid discussing for fear of violating readers sensitivities. But Ms. Gambrell embraces those subjects and confronts them head on, especially the issue of sexual abuse, which Abecka has been subjected to by her stepfather, and which is an integral part of Abecka's past.
Additionally, Ms. Gambrell's own voice as a Southern writer shines in this book. Healer's Daughter is not bogged down with ineffectual detail. Instead, it is chock full of dialogue between its characters. Some characters, including Abecka's housekeeper, Mayree, are interesting enough that you’ll find yourself wishing for a sequel featuring them as well.
I feel the book's conclusion is satisfying, yet surprising and heart-wrenching. I can't wait to see what Ms. Gambrell has planned next. It's sure to be a hit!
Vanesa Brashier
The Liberty Vindicator-----------------------
A handsome hero, a take-charge heroine, a jewel of a setting . . . they all come together in Healer’s daughter to provide the reader with a captivating story! I can’t wait to see more from this author!
Sabra Brown Steinsiek
Author of Timing Is Everything-----------------------
When Abecka rescues a horse destined for a packing house by winning it's auction, Clayton is brought back into her life. They'd loved each other as teenagers but he'd gone away to college and their relationship ended even though Clayton had tried to maintain it. However Abecka could not. Her mother had died under mysterious circumstances and she had been victimized by her stepfather, Judson Blackmore, a tent revival preacher. She was pregnant, and couldn't face Clayton again. Instead she told him she was going away to become a missionary, but actually bore the child she would raise as her sister.
The last few years have been peaceful for Abecka. Judson has been in prison and she has made a good life for herself, living on her family ranch with her child and their housekeeper. Seeing Clayton again at first terrifies her, but their love will not be denied, and with him comes news that brings healing to her heart. However when Judson is released from prison early, their lives are turned upside down, and once more they face losing each other, through mistrust or even death!
Healer's Daughter offers a suspenseful story of renewal and hope. It is both believable and enjoyable! Though set in modern times, it has a gentler feel, harkening to times past and delivering grittier subjects without being graphic. Hopefully this is an author we will be seeing more of in the future!
...3 Hearts...
Amanda Kilgore
The Romance Connection
by La'Nelle Gambrell
iUniverse
ISBN: 0-595-12856-4
Order through online or local book sellers
or direct from publisher 1-877-823-9235
Copyright © 2001 La'Nelle Gambrell
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