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ISBN: 978-1-942428-98-5
320 pages
$16.97 in softcover
$6.97 in Kindle
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Surface and Shadow
by Sally Whitney
What are you willing to risk to break free?
Smothered by her husband's expectations and the rigid gender roles of the 1970s, Lydia Colton
sees a chance to rediscover and unfetter herself—if only she can find out the truth about a
wealthy man's suspicious death.
According to history in the small town of Tanner, North Carolina, Howard Galloway died from
accidentally drinking poison moonshine, leaving his twin brother, Henry, sole heir to the
family's cotton mill and fortune. When Lydia hears that some people suspect Henry killed Howard,
she impulsively starts asking questions and is soon tangled up in the Galloway secrets, which no
one—least of all the Galloways—wants her to pursue.
Lydia's husband, Jeff, warns her that enraging Henry, the richest and most prominent employer in
town, could jeopardize Jeff's career in Tanner, and soon Lydia and Jeff's marriage is at risk.
But attempts by Jeff and other townspeople to thwart Lydia only make her more determined to solve
the riddles she's uncovered.
Will revealing the truth save or destroy her?
Praise for Surface and Shadow:
"A first-rate mystery in the hands of an accomplished storyteller."
~ Philip Cioffari, author of Dark Road, Dead End; Jesusville; and Catholic Boys
Whitney gracefully captures the rhythm of life in a small southern town, creates complex characters
who live and breathe, and explores large themes that affect us all. The story, beautifully told in
an elegant but approachable style, unfolds at an energetic pace that will keep you reading from start
to finish.
~ Mark Willen, author of Hawke's Point
"While Surface and Shadow offers the compelling tensions of a mystery story, its deeper probing
involves the unknowns of the central character, Lydia Colton. As she delves into the lives of
others connected with the circumstances of a strange death from a half century before, Lydia
comes to realize that she is also confronting the secrets of her own identity. The answer to one
mystery is inseparable from an illumination of the second. What started as a concern about a long
ago death becomes the source of lives renewed, for Lydia and for others. The resolution satisfies
the reader as much as it does Lydia."
~ Walter Cummins, Editor Emeritus of The Literary Review
"Sally Whitney's literary style delivers a character driven novel set in Tanner, North Carolina, a small
town with a southern sense of place where unspoken rules guard the family secrets of a prominent family.
Lydia Colton, a young married woman, feels like an invisible outsider in Tanner until she initiates
changes in her life and in the lives of others. She discovers ways to strengthen the fragile thread of
humanity that runs through all of us when she searches to uncover details surrounding the death of a
member of this prominent family. Vivid descriptions embrace the 1970s years with remarkable accuracy in
this well-crafted narrative that crosses boundaries implanted in the old southern ways."
~ Judith Bader Jones, author of The Language of Small Rooms, Moon Flowers on the Fence, and Delta Pearls
"Surface and Shadow is an evocative portrayal of life in 1972 small-town North Carolina. Multiple challenges
face newcomer Lydia Colton. How does she unravel the mysterious death of an heir to the town's major industry
while safeguarding her husband's fledgling physician career? How does she navigate the bounds of sexism,
racism, and classism tying her hands? How does she find a path to give her life meaning beyond her roles as
wife and mother? This is fiction at its best—memorable and absorbing."
~ Jacqueline Guidry, author of The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town
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Books by
Sally Whitney
Although Sally Whitney has spent most of her adult life in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kansas, and New Jersey, her
imagination lives in the South, the homeland of her childhood. "Whenever I dream of a story," she says, "I
feel the magic of red clay hills, magnolia trees, soft voices, sudden thunder storms, and rich emotions. The
South is a wonderland of mysteries, legends, and jokes handed down through generations of family storytellers,
people like me."
Sally is a fan of stories in almost any medium, including literature, theater, and film. She'd rather spend an
afternoon in the audience across from the footlights than anywhere else, and she thinks DVDs and streaming movies
are the greatest inventions since the automobile. She loves libraries and gets antsy if she has to drive very far
without an audio book to listen to.
The stories Sally writes have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, including Grow Old Along With
Me—The Best Is Yet To Be, the audio version of which was a Grammy Award finalist in the Spoken Word or Nonmusical
Album category. Her stories have also been recognized by the Syndicated Fiction Project and the Salem College National
Literary Awards competition.
In nonfiction, she's worked as a public relations writer, freelance journalist, and editor of Best's Review magazine.
Her articles have appeared in magazines and newspapers, including St. Anthony Messenger, The Kansas City Star, AntiqueWeek,
and Our State: Down Home in North Carolina.
Sally currently lives in Maryland with her cat, Ruth. When she isn't writing, reading, watching movies, attending plays, or pursuing
her most recent interest—playing pool—she likes to poke around in antique shops looking for treasures. "The best things in life are
the ones that have been loved, whether by you or somebody else," she says.
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