Blog Tour and Book Excerpt for "One Fine Voice"

BOOK EXCERPT

Chapter 1

“Esther,” Daddy called. “It’s time to go.”

I didn’t want to go.

I wanted to stay and even though it was the first day of summer, I wanted to go to Meadow Springs School and sit next to Dorothy Hoover just like I, Esther Hopkins, had done ever since my first day of school. Why, the alphabet itself had pre-ordained that we would be best friends for life!

But no one ever listened to what I wanted. My voice didn’t seem to matter.

When I finally climbed into the backseat, I pushed against my father’s battered old Army footlocker trying to make more room. But it didn’t budge. Just like my father. This move was all his doing. A promise he had made nearly five years ago in a trench in the Western Front. My father, the farmer, promised God he’d serve him and become a minister if he lived through the Great War in Europe. It had taken him several years and a lot of studying, but my father was making good on his promise.

Daddy started the car. Mama leaned out the open window to hug Dorothy’s mother. As Daddy pulled the car through the gate and onto the road, Mama and I turned to wave through the back window until we couldn’t see our friends any longer. Only Daddy looked forward, straight ahead, driving to Grayson, Indiana, and a new life. A new job waited for him there where he’d be ordained as the new Baptist minister.

What did the road ahead hold for me?