Some of you have met author Gina Hooten Popp before on my blog. However, some of you are meeting her here for the first time. I am a big fan of hers. I love all of her books.

Her Winds of Change series speaks to my heart. I can’t wait to read The Emigrant’s Song. 

My great-great grandfather came from Ireland and settled in Louisiana. How he got there and why is still a mystery to me. It’s stories like Gina’s that fuel my imagination about what he went through and what he endured.

Please meet Gina Hooten Popp.

Thank you, Linda for letting me post on your blog about my recent release The Emigrant’s Song—a short story prequel to my novels The Storm After and Lucky’s Way—both in the Winds of Change Series.

Set in 1898 Ireland, The Emigrant’s Song is a historical fiction tale about a singer named January Cola Buchanan who decides to tie her future to a duo of American recording artists who have come to her small village scouting talent. Once they hear the talented January sing, the music entrepreneurs offer her money to make a shellac phonograph disc with their company. But this is not enough for the Irish songbird, she wants to travel back to America with them and tour through the States. But first she must convince her longtime beau John McLaren that this is a good idea knowing that they might never return home again.

I decided to write the story as a short read because I wanted to tell a little of the background of what motivated the characters January Buchanan and John McLaren to come to America from Ireland. It’s never an easy decision to leave one’s home, one’s family, to travel to a foreign land. But they, like so many others before and after them, decided to take a leap of faith and cross the ocean in search of a better, or at least a very different life.

In January’s case it was her ambition that drove her to overcome her fears so she could accept an opportunity of a lifetime, and John more-or-less let fate drag him along by the hand until he too discovered an incredible life for himself. And I think this is what life is like for a lot of us. We plot and plan, but in the end the best we can do is hang on while the winds of fate blow.

The Emigrant’s Song at Amazon

Also, I must mention, I used a book Creative Characterization by Jan Morrill to build January’s character in this story. And, to be honest, I was having a little trouble getting started, until in one of the characterization exercises I pretended to interview January, and her fictional character told me that she would only give me her story if I met her in the early mornings just after I had awakened with the cobwebs of dreams still fresh in my mind. Now I’m not an early bird, and I thought this was an unusually high-maintenance request by a character, but I changed my habits just to get her story, and I’m glad I did. I hope you enjoy reading The Emigrant’s Song and that it will inspire you to read the other books in the Winds of Change series if you haven’t already.

Winds of Change Series:

The Emigrant’s Song at Amazon

The Storm After at Amazon

Lucky’s Way at Amazon

Also, you won’t want to miss Gina’s epic story Tomorrow Comes at Midnight. 

Living in a treehouse and dealing drugs is one way to overcome your fear of being ordinary. But Jayden discovers it’s not the best way, as he gets beaten-up, thrown in jail … and then beaten up again before being thrown out of jail. And that’s only a small part of the punishment the universe seems to heap on him as he makes his way from being a troubled soul who struggles with a sense of self-worth to being a confident, professional ballplayer. Set in the 1970’s, this Southern drama would be your typical small-town-boy-makes-good story. Except that it’s not.

HAPPY READING!

Linda Joyce