Award-winning Publishers Weekly Best-selling Author

Linda Brooks Davis is a fellow author and has a new book coming out, centering on a topic we tend to shy away from—mental health. I know you’ll find her post invaluable. Thanks for sharing, Linda! Take it away.

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I suffer from depression, a dark subject. Maybe you do too. Or perhaps you know someone who does. It’s no fun. The treatments are neither easy nor complete, but at least there are treatments nowadays. This hasn’t always been so.

The Awakening of Miss Adelaide, Book 3 in The Women of Rock Creek series, released on July 9th. It tells the story of a gifted heiress and beloved philanthropist who is snatched from a quiet life in an Italian villa and thrust into conflicts others created. In this story which opens in the closing days of the Great War, war and peace, laughter and heartache, love and loss come together to ignite a fresh fire that reveals this one woman’s hidden needs and potentials. What will gaining a fresh understanding of herself require of the Angel of the Opera? The answers may lie in the dark corners of a hidden reality of the times: women’s rights and mental health care.

This story begins with my mother’s cedar chest, which bore an unwritten warning: Hands off! Priceless treasures resided in its depths. My parents’ wedding suits. An old tattered quilt. Mother’s felt hat with a jaunty feather at the rolled-up brim. Bible notes. A stained tablecloth. Equally stained ladies’ handkerchiefs. And old, crocheted, scorched pot holders.

My paternal great-grandmother wrote letters and created intricate, painstaking handwork while she was committed to an asylum in Terrell, Texas. They represent the dearest items in the cedar chest. 

This dear lady was born in Sebastian County, Arkansas in 1870. She married and bore four children. Her eldest daughter, my grandmother, married in Hall County, Texas in 1911. Her grandson, my father, entered the world in 1914. 

Incalculable are the times over the years when a family member would comment Great-Granny didn’t appear insane at all. I often wondered how it was she resided at a state mental hospital from 1900 until her death in 1948. How could an insane person write coherent letters and create such handwork?

Mysterious Memories

Mystery shrouds those answers as surely as Great-Granny herself. All we know certainly is that her eldest child, my grandmother assumed the role of “woman of the house” at eleven years of age. She prepared meals and kept the house and tended three younger siblings. 

Due to a paucity of records, photos, and other documentation, mystery veils Great-grandmother’s growing-up years. We know only that she and her husband married and lived in Indian Territory and Wise County, Texas from 1888 to 1900.

Family legend developed around her. Stories varied from “She wasn’t crazy. Her husband wanted to get rid of her” to “She was an Indian who chose her last name to avoid White bias against the indigenous people.” The truth hides somewhere amid the deadfall of her tragic life. 

Precious Memories 

Over forty-eight years of commitment, Great-grandmother wrote a handful of letters to her daughter. I am the keeper of those treasures, along with two items of handwork–a baby dress she sewed by hand in 1914 for her grandson, my father; and a table doily in 1920.

Someone ought to write a book about that was often said around our family reunions. My interest in doing just that developed little by little over the years. The Women of Rock Creek series deals with my family history and some of the ways in which women were denied equal rights when they were denied the vote. Such realities presented me an ideal platform for illustrating some women’s plight in the hands of certain unscrupulous men–inequality in education, the courtroom, and even in mental health care. 

Therefore, with an abundance of love and respect for Great-grandmother; her daughter, my grandmother; and her grandson, my father, I offer this imaginary story that brings a dark subject to the Light by contrasting two different women: one with a voice heard around the world and the other with no voice at all. 

I offer The Awakening of Miss Adelaide to the Lord to do with it as He wills. I pray this story based on the agony experienced by my great-grandmother serve to lighten someone else’s load by highlighting the hope and healing found in Jesus Christ.

The Awakening of Miss Adelaide

Book 3, The Women of Rock Creek

Orphaned as an infant, Oklahoma heiress Adelaide Fitzgerald has enjoyed every advantage. She possesses a unique gift for music and has excelled on the opera stage in Italy. As a philanthropist, she’s adored from America to Europe.

But Miss Adelaide is about to awaken in a 1918 nightmare.

When the Great War–and the Great Influenza–knock, Adelaide finds her uninvited guests more than unwelcome. They threaten her life and alter her identity and purpose.

Snatched from her quiet life in an Italian villa, Miss Adelaide is thrust into conflicts others have created. What battle scars will she sustain? And where will love lead her? 

In The Awakening of Miss Adelaide, war and peace, laughter and heartache, love and loss come together to ignite a fresh fire that reveals one woman’s hidden needs and potentials.

What will gaining a fresh understanding of herself require of the Angel of the Opera?

Who I Am and How to Reach Me and My Books

Linda Brooks Davis was born and reared on a farm in Raymondville, a small Rio Grande Valley community in the southernmost tip of Texas. Linda earned a Bachelor Degree in Speech Pathology from Abilene Christian University and a Master Degree from Houston Baptist University. She retired in 2008 after forty years as a special educator and administrator. Linda and her beloved husband Al worship and minister at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio and dote on six grandchildren, three of whom are triplets. Readers may contact Linda through her website, lindabrooksdavis.com.

Linda’s debut novel, best-selling The Calling of Ella McFarland (Book 1 in The Women of Rock Creek series), is set in 1905 Indian Territory prior to Oklahoma statehood. It won the 2014 Jerry Jenkins Operation First Novel Award. It subsequently won the ACFW Carol Award for Debut Novel 2016. The sequel novella, A Christmas to Remember, is set in 1908 Oklahoma and released in December, 2016. A second novella, A Christmas Measure of Love, is set in 1910. It released in 2017 as a prequel to Linda’s second full-length novel, best-selling The Mending of Lillian Cathleen (Book 2 in the series), which is set in 1914 and released in October 2018. Book 3 in the series, The Awakening of Miss Adelaide, is due to release in July 2019.

Social Media Links:

Facebook:   Linda Brooks Davis, Author

Twitter:   @LBrooksDavis

Pinterest:    ljbd1946 

Instagramlindadavis1321  

Contact Links:

Website

Amazon Author Page: http://amzn.to/2qshCKq

Goodreads

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/linda-brooks-davis

Purchase Links:

The Calling of Ella McFarland:

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca 

A Rock Creek Christmas Collection:

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Readers!

Linda is offering Kindle or iBooks files for all three of her novels in The Women of Rock Creek series to someone who joins this conversation. All she asks in return are reviews and ratings on Amazon and Goodreads. Comment and you could win!

2 Comments

  1. Paula Shreckhise

    These look like such great stories! I love when an author connects their heritage to their fictional works!

    Reply
  2. Linda Brooks Davis

    Thank you so much for reading and commenting, Paula. You have encouraged me!

    Reply

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