Artifacts - Hardcover

Evans, Mary Anna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1590580567 ISBN 13: 9781590580561

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Pr, 2003

Synopsis

Faye Longchamp has lost nearly everything except for her quick mind and a grim determination to hang onto her ancestral home, Joyeuse, a moldering plantation hidden along the Florida coast. No one knows how Faye’s great-great-grandmother Cally, a newly freed slave barely out of her teens, came to own Joyeuse in the aftermath of the Civil War. No one knows how her descendants hung onto it through Reconstruction, world wars, the Depression, and Jim Crow, but Faye has inherited the island plantation—and the family tenacity. When the property taxes rise beyond her means, she sets out to save Joyeuse by digging for artifacts on her property and the surrounding National Wildlife Refuge and selling them on the black market. A tiny bit of that dead glory would pay a year’s taxes. A big valuable chunk of the past would save her home forever. But instead of potsherds and arrowheads, she uncovers a woman’s shattered skull, a Jackie Kennedy-style earring nestled against its bony cheek. Faye is torn. If she reports the forty-year-old murder, she’ll reveal her illegal livelihood, thus risking jail and the lose of Joyeuse. She doesn’t intend to let that happen, so she probes into the dead woman’s history, unaware that the past is rushing up on her like a hurricane across deceptively calm Gulf waters

About this title

Product Description:

Light wear to boards, content clean and sharp, signed by author, solidly bound, very good DJ with some wear

Review:

"The shifting little isles along the Florida Panhandle--hurricane-wracked bits of land filled with plenty of human history--serve as the effective backdrop for Evans's debut, a tale of greed, archaeology, romance and murder.... Readers should welcome this strong new sleuth." -- Publishers Weekly "You will enjoy this book for the mystery story and the interesting history and archaeological information the author freely dispenses. Books from Poisoned Pen Press are always a good bet with an interesting twist be it a new author or an almost forgotten one." -- I Love a Mystery "First-novelist Evans introduces a strong female sleuth in this extremely promising debut, and she makes excellent use of her archaeological subject matter, weaving past and present together in a multi-layered, compelling plot." -- Booklist "Artifacts is a haunting, atmospheric story in which a mysterious island holds the clue to long-buried family secrets. Mary Anna Evans brings passion and insight to her subject and has written a modern southern gothic novel about a biracial woman's search for her heritage." -- PJ Parrish, Edgar nominee and New York Times best-selling author

"A fresh contemporary protagonist, Faye Longchamp gives the phrase 'scraping to get by' a whole different meaning. Past and present merge in an intriguing story ably demonstrating that Miami doesn't have a monopoly on murder in Florida." -- Aileen Schumacher, Anthony award nominated author

About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Pr
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1590580567
• ISBN 13: 9781590580561
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 267