<p>Terry Ward Tucker does it again. The main characters who pucker up for Charleston Kisses, the novel, deliver a one-two punch disguised as a French kiss. Her plot confirms a Southern suspicion: that "family" and "dysfunction" in the same phrase is redundant. Logan Gaillard, the female main character, knows perfectly well Thomas Wolfe was right, but she goes home again anyway. Charleston, "Lady by the Sea," is always the fall-back for this Southern gal whose string of failed relationships has elapsed too much time on her bio clock. Enter Tradd Petigru, the drunken young Charleston preacher who permanently trips Logan's romantic trigger. As soon as we begin to loathe him for his sins of weakness, Tucker pulls back a tendril of Spanish moss to show us poor Petigru's reason for communing with the bottle--a fiance who's been comatose four, long years. For her other characters, Tucker weaves Southern traits into patterns as complicated as the lattices in Lowcountry sweetgrass baskets. In some scenes, the players beg you to shake them by their shoulders; in others, to say, "Aw, sugah"--saving, "Bless their little hearts" for more innocent moments, excluding bending the truth. Charleston Kisses is a full-on-the-lips-buss, just the great read you'll want in your beach bag or on your bedside table.</p>

Charleston Kisses

Religion & Spirituality

Terry Ward Tucker

Christian Books & Bibles

Capulet Publishing

This is the story of Tommy and Rhona, two adolescents in the early 1900's south who must prematurely put an end to their childhood to help support their families. Child labor is still legal despite a national move to outlaw and millions of children, some as young as seven or eight, labor in spirit numbing menial jobs the same long hours as adults. Not until 1913 do the first laws banning child labor go on the books. The boy in Tucker's story has stood before a loom in a cotton mill from the time he turned eleven. The girl is a beautiful gypsy princess who has told fortunes for money and food for as long as she can remember. Yet in spite of their hopeless circumstances, Tommy and Rhona manage to find sweet and funny moments to behave like the children they are. Theirs is the story of the resilience of youth and of young love blooming.

Moonlight and Mill Whistles

Teen & Young Adult

Historical Fiction

The Fig & The Vine Publishing, LLC

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Books by Terry Ward Tucker