One of the great joys of being a writer is getting to read the work of other writers before it goes to print. I did that recently with a novel by Milinda Jay of Panama City, Florida. I have known Milinda for several years now and adore her. She is such a bright spirit and always, always manages to find the good in everything. Even the very hard things.

I had a better sense of where Milinda gets her strength while reading ANNIE LAURA’s TRIUMPH. It’s a historical fiction based on a very terrible event in the life of one Milinda’s kinfolks (but I’ll let her tell you all about that).

I loved this book because it transported me to a different time and place. If a book doesn’t do that, doesn’t transport me, I simply cannot keep reading it. I need to be there in that wagon, running up and down those sandy roads, helping my neighbors, figuring out how to help save the characters I care so much about. You know what I mean by that?

Milinda makes me care and she puts me right in that moment of heartache and triumph.

Here’s a little background for you to consider:

In 1915 Grassy Glade, Florida, just across the bay from Panama City, Annie Laura’s birth daughter, Viola Lee has a good life. She keeps house while her adoptive mother runs a successful dry goods store, and is the apple of her adoptive father’s eye. She is only a week away from her dream wedding-the church is ready, and the dress is nearly complete. But things begin to unravel when her fiancé, James, does not return from his lumber camp deep in the piney woods of North Florida. A stranger interrupts Viola Lee’s long-awaited and much hoped for reunion with Annie Laura, revealing a secret that could threaten Viola Lee’s happily ever after. Despite struggles of her own, Annie Laura must go on a harrowing quest to right past wrongs and uncover the truth about James. Milinda Jay has created a vivid cast of characters in this story of tragic family secrets, love, longing, redemption, and ultimate triumph.

So leave your name below, share on your Social Media and you, too, will have a chance at reading this fabulous story and meeting an author you may not be familiar with yet.

Learn Milinda’s name though because she is a storyteller and she’s got a bunch more stories to tell us.

Here’s a photo of Milinda’s grandparents in a horse and buggy on their way to their new home.

Even if you don’t win, you are going to want to buy this book. Mercer University Press is the publisher.