Today we welcome Patricia Clark Blake to my blog. Patricia is giving away one copy of her new book The Dream of Shiloh to one person who comments. Please leave contact information.
Seven weeks wed, friends in the making, Laurel Campbell and
Patrick MacLayne have survived a perilous trek across three hundred miles of
wilderness paths in Arkansas to reach his homestead in Greene County. The dream
of Shiloh--the sense of home, acceptance and belonging they both seek--appears
so distant, the MacLaynes fear it’s beyond reach. They know they can do the
tangible parts: build a cabin, grow crops, and earn a livelihood. Yet, can they
forge a marriage on friendship, a mutual faith, and vows spoken when they had
known each other only four days? What
barriers lay in their path?
They are strangers. Laurel is grateful but at the same time
annoyed that she is “an obligation” to her new husband. He removed her curse of
being the “Spinster of Hawthorn,” but can she accept the terms of the marriage?
Mac has declared he will never love another woman. Just as in the case of his
bride, events from his past loom over the hopes and plans he has made for his
future. Perhaps, their dream of Shiloh is only that…a dream.
Have you always like
to write?
When I was a teen, a
friend and I wrote romantic short stories that we shared only with each
other. They were about our “mad love
affairs” with our favorite musicians, of course. Then life set in and I taught school for
forty years. I have taken up writing
again as my second career. I should have
started much earlier as it’s a passion that truly fills my days.
Just as your books
inspire authors, what authors have inspired you to write?
So many writers have spoken to me as I have always been an
avid reader. I adore Margaret Mitchell’s
Gone with the Wind. Francine Rivers is
at the top of my list. I like the
stories of Janette Okes. I love writers
who can build a saga and lose me in the lives of those characters for hours and
hours. Marie de Jourlet who wrote the
Windhaven saga in the 1970’s could do that.
I also love John Jakes.
How did you decide
upon the title of The Dream of Shiloh?
Shiloh is the name of
an actual church here in the county where I live. The history in my novel has been researched,
and the places I write about are real.
The story line and the characters are fiction. Today, the Shiloh United Methodist Church is
on the site of the original Shiloh church I wrote about in the book.
How important are
names to you in your books? Do you choose the names of character in The Dream
of Shiloh based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning? Do you have any
name choosing resources you recommend?
Most of the names just came to me as the story grew. Some of them are names from my genealogy, names
of good friends whom the characters reminded me of, and names I copied from
gravestones across the northern part of Arkansas as I researched the
books. There are also several names of
actual people who were local professional people, public officials, and
tradesmen which were taken from the census records of the period. I used the census records extensively because
they help me maintain a sense of authenticity by populating my settlements and
towns with people of the ethnic background that actually lived in those areas
at that time. Only Laurel Grace’s name
has a symbolic meaning. Grace is also
represented by the light beams on the cover of the book.
What were the
challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing it
to life?
The two challenges I faced in writing The Dream of Shiloh
were the limited amount of historical documentation of daily life in the
Crowley’s Ridge region during the period.
I am grateful for a local historian named Herschel Eaton for four
articles he published in The Craighead County Historical Quarterly about life
in Greensboro. That and the census
records allowed my imagination and my personal knowledge of the area to create
a daily life of the homesteader to go along with my story line.
Secondly, as The
Dream of Shiloh: An Arkansas Love Story is a sequel to In Search of
Shiloh, A Journey Home Through Arkansas, I learned how difficult it is to
rewrite the opening chapter for a second book in a saga. I rewrote the opening chapter many times
before I had a beginning for a book that could stand alone and as the second
book in a series.
Patricia Clark Blake is a new author whose Shiloh Saga
novels are capturing audiences with their stories of relationships and the life
and death struggles of early Arkansans who settled her native state. While
paying attention to historical detail, her fictional account of frontier life
is populated with people of strong faith and dedication to building a good
future in their chosen state.
Pat’s interest in Arkansas is understandable as she spent
her career teaching English, Spanish, oral communications, leadership, and
serving as a counselor in Arkansas public schools. Her educational credentials were earned at
Arkansas State University. She also taught psychology at Black River Technical
College and supervised counseling interns at ASU before retiring.
Early publications for Blake has been in juried
psychological journals, but the novels of the Shiloh Saga are her first attempt
at fiction. Her first book, In Search
of Shiloh: A Journey Home Through Arkansas was published in July of
2017. This book, The Dream of Shiloh:
An Arkansas Love Story is the second volume of the saga. The third book, which will be entitled Beyond
Shiloh is planned for late summer 2018.
Two additional books will complete the series.
Faith in God is a theme woven throughout the Shiloh novels
and likewise is an important part of Pat’s life. She teaches Sunday school and regularly
volunteers in her church. Two other
fascinations are genealogy and Arkansas history, both of which have served her
well in the Shiloh undertaking. Readers
may be interested to know that Pat actually lives in Jonesboro, Arkansas, near
the historic Greensboro community, which was once a town and the place depicted
in the Shiloh novels.
Pat proudly tells all she is blessed with a wonderful
daughter and son-in-law who made her Nanna to a beautiful granddaughter and a
fine grandson.
Social media and
buying links
Please follow me on Facebook at Patricia Clark Blake, my
author’s page.
My web page is patriciaclarkblake.com.
Books are available at Barnes and Noble.com
Amazon.com
and on Kindle.com.
5 comments:
Nice getting to know Patricia Clark Black today. The Dream of Shiloh calls my name with the history and characters' challenge as they forge ahead in their lives together. Thank you for the opportunity to win a copy of the book. blessings.
marilynridgway78{at]gmail[dot]com
Thanks for the introduction to a new author. Her work sounds intriguing. I’m sure after teaching for so many years that spelling and punctuation are perfect.
perrianne(DOT)askew(AT)me(DOT)com
Perrianne
I love to discover new clean authors
Jolen1021(at)gmail(dot)com
I loved Pat’s first book, In Search of Shiloh..., so much that I shared it with numerous other people, mostly my friends at Pleasant Grove United MethodistChurch, near where Shiloh was, and they all loved it too. It was hard to put down at times. We have been so excited for this second book.
Congratulations, Nita.
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