Much Ado about BBQ is here

Whew, there is nothing like trying to write a book during a pandemic. I wrote a book before the pandemic. (It’s not done yet) Then I started another book that was finished during the pandemic. (It’s being shopped around. We’ll see) Then I wrote this book AND a Christmas novella. (You’ll probably get to see that Christmas novella in 2022)

But let’s talk about this book…

I hadn’t intended to go back to Ellery, but sometimes I’ll think of things that are so quintessentially Tennessee that I simply must. This book is my ode to pulled pork barbecue, especially the whole hog that was more prevalent in my youth. When you get the book, you’ll notice it has a different kind of dedication:

For Henderson and Jacks Creek, Pinson and Mifflin, Finger and Five Points, but especially that little spot known as County Line

That’s for all y’all back home. Sure, the past few years we might have had a few differences of opinion, but I love you, truly. And I love where I’m from, truly. Per usual, this is a very fictionalized version of home, but the Chester County Barbeque Festival was my inspiration all the same.

Here’s a teeny tiny nibble of how the story begins in Emma’s point of view:

Just inside the door of The Flying Pig Restaurant, a wooden sign in the shape of a pig proclaimed the three pillars of my childhood: God, family, and whole hog barbecue. I reverently traced the words of the sign, fingers sticking in the grooves where they’d been burned into the wood. I hadn’t been to church in a while and my family was still broken from the long-ago loss of my father, but we still had barbecue.

At least I hoped I still had barbecue.

I’d hardly been home since I’d left home for the University of Memphis in the same battered Ford Focus I’d pulled up in a few minutes ago. That morning long ago I’d promised myself three things: to get the hell out of Ellery and never come back, to make something of myself, and to never think of Ben Cates ever again.

Now here I was back in the first, nowhere near the second, and still hoping to avoid the third…

You know you want to know if Emma can keep her promises to herself, doncha?