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Health & Fitness

Local Author's Newest Novel, Blackberry Days of Summer, is a Cascade Hit

BLACKBERRY DAYS OF SUMMER, delivers characters that are neither good nor evil but a provocative combination of everything that makes us human.

A new novel, Blackberry Days of Summer by Cascade author Ruth P. Watson has got the community asking for a sequel. Set against the backdrop of post- World War I, BLACKBERRY DAYS OF SUMMER is a compelling look at the Jim Crow era in rural Virginia.   This suspenseful tale of deceit is filled with lust, adultery, and romance.

In the tradition of The Color Purple and The Help, Watson introduces readers to Herman Camm.  As Robert Parker’s body is lowered into the grave, in Jefferson County, Virginia, Herman slithers into the life of the mourning family. Camm is a beady-eyed, small-framed womanizer with nice clothes, who has a complicated life involving three women: his wife, Mae Lou Parker; her daughter, Carrie, and a nightclub singer, Pearl Brown.

All of the women’s lives converge when Herman is found dead from a shotgun wound.  There are many people Herman has offended. And all three women are suspects in his murder.  An investigation is launched.However, it is 1920, and the fate of a black man’s life is never a concern in the Jim Crow South.

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BLACKBERRY DAYS OF SUMMER discusses themes, such as:

  • the importance of education in the 1920’s and
    what that meant for the quality of life for an African American in the South,
  • the mistreatment of African Americans in the Jim
    Crow era and the negligence among murder cases with African-American victims,
  • mental health concerns within the  African-American community,
  • and much more!

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