Beth Albright: A Deep South Passion

First of all, thank you Lee for having me! Thrilled to connect with your readers today!

I had a little epiphany the other day when a reader wrote to me and asked me why I started writing. It got me thinking. I reached back into the dusty cobweb-filled corners of my mind-- and found my heart. My heart has always been at the center of my writing—and I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. So, “my heart needed to speak”, was the answer to that question—I write to satisfy my heart. To express my heart. To share my heart.

My heart resides way down in the Deep South, where the most hilarious, most passionate, most resilient women I have even known live. Tuscaloosa, Alabama is home for me, although I have lived quite literally all over this country and now live in San Francisco, CA. Still, the college town of Tuscaloosa, with our famous champion football team, The Crimson Tide, The Black Warrior River that runs through town, and the tremendous mouth-watering food all beg me to come home and nestle myself on the banks of the river under the brilliant turquoise and creamsicle sunsets. Moss hanging in lacy shawls across tree-tunneled streets call my name.

But mostly it’s the funny women-- the women who supported my mom and had her back constantly helping her raise my brother and me after my Daddy died in a car accident. My mother was a young widow at Twenty-five with two babies. I was only four years old and my brother was two.  Over my whole life, during tragedy or triumph, we broke out the Krispy Kremes and sat around my grandmother’s yellow 1950s styled kitchen table laughing until we couldn’t. I learned a lot about life from those women and it’s them I love to write about.

My mother was the craziest of them all, carrying a Mary Poppins sized bag for a purse and pulling anything we ever needed out of it—from batteries, to a plate, it was magically in that “purse.” Sometimes I just stood, staring at my mother—my mouth wouldn’t close. My aunt would whisper in my ear, “Beth, your mother is crazy, never ever forget that.”  Then we would all somehow be glad Mother had that extension cord in that purse! Yep. She does to this day. All of them were a tad different. Fun is the way I remember it all. And Happy. Happy in the face of real life that was sometimes tragic.

These women are what I know. They are my passion. That’s why comedy is such a huge part of my stories. In my life, we couldn’t have made it without all the laughter. 

Writing was the way I could be home--home in Tuscaloosa with my circle of hilarious, strong, resilient women. And of course all that delicious food, along with a string of pearls, a little Aquanet, some lipstick and high heels-- cause, honey, even in a crisis, a southern woman has to look good after all! It’s in our raising—part of the tradition that has been carried down from mother to daughter for hundreds of years.

Passion is what a writer, any artist, taps to hit that geyser of truth-- the flow. I know mine lies in the Deep South, in Tuscaloosa, with all that hilarity and sweet sisterhood that calls me home, at least in my heart, every day.

The Perfect Score:

Ginny Bloom Hunnicutt is crawling back home to Cottonwood Cove Alabama-- her promising CNN news-reporting career in shambles when an on-air flub cost her the job and cost CNN a lawsuit. Putting ego aside, she takes a position at the Chatterbox – the local weekly newspaper run by her mother, the town gossip. What’s a southern belle to do in a crisis but run home to her mama?

But when a mysterious hot high school football coach rolls into town, Ginny’s luck begins to change. Seems he has more secrets than a shady politician and Ginny’s determined to dig up the truth, and write the story that will get her career back on track. Everyone knows in a small, southern town, nothing stays private.
But the more she delves into his past, the more she begins to fall for the former college football star.

The coach’s star player has some secrets of his own and when Ginny uncovers it all, she must decide if she should reveal everything or follow her heart and protect the people she has grown to care for.

Author Beth Albright weaves a saucy southern tale filled with intrigue, romance and laugh out-loud comedy. From the bright lights of Friday night football to the darkened bedroom of unexpected lovers, it’s a richly layered story with more twists and turns—and mud, than an Alabama back road.

Also look for Beth's novella, Saved By The Belles, available now!

http://www.BethAlbrightBooks.com

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