Author, speaker, blogger Karen Spears Zacharias on ATS LIVE today!

There is only one Karen Spears Zacharias and in about an hour, give or take a few minutes, she’ll be on ATS LIVE to talk about her latest book, Mother of Rain.

Here’s a synopsis of the book:

Maizee Hurd starts hearing voices soon after her mother’s death. She is prone to hallucinations–“A brigade of roaches, some nearly three inches long, would line up around the bed in the morning”. Her aunt and uncle try to protect her from distress. 

Mother of Rain is an exploration of the nature of community in a rural setting. The people inhabiting Christian Bend are a sympathetic group, including the childless aunt and uncle who take Maizee in when her father abandons her; Burdy Lutrell, the mysterious, dark, Melungeon healer from over the mountain; Zebulon, Maizee’s devoted husband, among others.

Zacharias gives many of them their own chapters. Zeb’s mostly feature his experiences in the Army as a paratrooper during the D-Day invasion. The fictional folks of Christian Bend are more authentic than the actual people in any social history. Zacharias convincingly portrays what they eat and wear, how and where they work, their favorite places for solitude, fishing, or love-making, and the role of religion in their lives. There’s little mention of any schooling, and some characters hold to what contemporary readers would call superstition. When Maizee gets bad news, for example, “Burdy came over early the morning after I got word of Zeb’s death and hung sheets over the mirrors, to keep the spirits at bay.” 

Mother of Rain offers plenty of tragedies, jealous tension and foreboding, nightmares and visions, but no real villains. Even Zeb’s sergeant in the Army is a sensitive counselor, and, back home, the community “mucckly low-down … juker” and the gossipy telephone operator, are, in the end, sympathetic characters who try to help Maizee weather her storms

I don’t know how to give you a synopsis of Karen. Her website says she is “a former newspaper reporter and columnist, a popular blogger and speaker who learned the craft of storytelling from her Appalachian ancestors, that her work has been featured in Good Morning America, Huffington Post, New York Times, USA Today, CNN and National Public Radio, that Mother of Rain is her sixth book and her first novel.” 

But that doesn’t begin to tell you who she is either.

Karen Spears Zacharias is wordy,

compassionate,

honest, and original.

And she’s my friend.

Come visit with us.  SHOW TIME: 5:06 to 6:00 PM Central

Hugs,
Shellie