Dancing in the Graveyard
Release Date: 12/17/2024
In Sandra Fox Murphy’s collected stories, her tall tales are often told from the other side. Many stories are set in early Texas or in early America, capturing the spirited color and steadfast settlers of the country in its becoming. “Dancing in the Graveyard” is a tragedy set in moderns times, while “Picnic on the Island” goes all the way back to the Divil War at Fort Delaware. “Serendipity” is a joyful story inspired by the author’s time as a hospice volunteer, and “Spellbound” takes us into hard times of the future. Murphy’s stories are full of history, and her characters seem often to appear, at times, from thin air.
The Dalhart Girls
Release Date: 4 June 2024
In the early 1950’s Panhandle town of Dalhart, Texas, the church stands staunch amidst community and gossip—but on a December Sunday, a shapely young woman from Colorado, Curtye Lee Logan, walks in on the arm of bull rider Willie Bob Preston and seats herself in the second pew of Victory Church. Curtye Lee quickly stirs the town’s gossip and is welcomed by ranch-wife Shelby Hauser and the pastor’s wife Jane Connor. Shelby tells the journey of these three women and unbeknownst to pastor Henry Connor, how the three women conspire to secretly study mysticism in the back of Gene Crawford’s store. As Dalhart recovered from the terrible years and losses of the 1930’s Dust Bowl, the shadows of those years still hold secrets and pain for long-time residents of a small town in the high plains, and in spite of the hardscrabble life of west Texas and the scandals of a small town, the friendship of these three women—Shelby, Jane, and Curtye Lee—stands firm as the Fates spin destinies in most unlikely ways.
The lovely book cover was designed at Atmosphere Press by Kevin Stone.
The Fidelia McCord Series
Mourning of the Dove (May 2022)
In the early summer of 1860, the man Fidelia McCord had fallen in love with, Miles Maloney, traveled north to gather information and stories for the anti-secessionist newspaper Southern Intelligencer. He’d been certain his beloved Fidelia would await his return. But he has vanished and sent no word to her. Had he fallen to a terrible end in the scrubland, or had he abandoned the young woman he claimed to love?
As the year 1860 neared its end, Fidelia’s heart faltered midst doubt and persuasion, and she accepted James Hughes’ proposal of marriage. When the nation begins to tremble toward war, James enlists with Benjamin Terry’s Texas Rangers, and as James departs, Fidelia shares the news that she is carrying their child. James will be gone for years.
While the two men who love Fidelia find their way through a war-torn nation, facing death at every turn, Fidelia perseveres through her own struggles and losses in Texas, always with fear in the back of her mind that she may have chosen the wrong path. A haunting dread fills her. What if neither of the men she loves comes home?
Released 7 October 2019: On a Lark
Book 2 of the Fidelia McCord Series
In On a Lark, Fidelia McCord has become the only surviving child of John and Mariah McCord of Pond Springs. After having borne great loss and hardship in mid-nineteenth century Texas – where moments of jubilation and jeopardy carry a girl to womanhood – Fidelia knows the weight of her choices. At the same time, far away in North Carolina, the Maloney brothers, cooking mash into whiskey in the Appalachian mountains, are making their own life-changing decisions, with Miles Maloney trying to keep his brother Jackson in check and away from the gallows. But, as Fidelia and Miles each forge their own path to a future, destiny has plans of its own.
Let the Little Birds Sing (The Fidelia McCord Series, Book 1) released December 7, 2018
In 1847, the McCord family, filled with hope for prospects of a better life, packed all their earthly belongings into covered wagons and left their homes in Indiana for Texas. The world beyond was in front of seven-year-old Fidelia, and little did she know, as the wagons traveled down the dusty trail to the southwest, that there would be the need for all the courage she could muster. Her faith would be tested and fortitude found in the most unexpected places.
Let the Little Birds Sing is the beginning of Fidelia McCord’s story, of the hardships she encounters and sees around her, told through the eyes of a precocious and determined girl. It is a tale set in early America inspired by the journey of a girl coming of age amidst the perils of settling in a new and untamed land.
That Beautiful Season
by Sandra Fox Murphy
When the Civil War is at last over, a young girl called Sylvie is unaware of the turmoil of her past and the Reconstruction all around her. She knows only farm animals and crop cycles and the love of her family. Growing into a lovely young woman in rural Maryland, she finds happiness in the farming life and, over time, runs smack into love. But she soon will discover that life is filled not only with joy, but loss, and secrets that will topple all she thought she knew.
That Beautiful Season delves deep into the love of family and the love of the land near the Chesapeake Bay. As the country recovers from war and is then flung into an economic depression, can the Greenwood family overcome sorrow and find its way again?
Read an excerpt. Click here.
A Thousand Stars
by Sandra Fox Murphy
In 1665, in Rhode Island, Ann Tallman, wife of Peter, is sentenced to fifteen lashings in Newport’s town square. Her story begins, in 1647, in Barbados where Ann Hill, the daughter of English settlers, meets the dashing German merchant Captain Peter Tallman. After they wed and settle in colonial Rhode Island, after six children, after years of Peter’s absences at sea, abuse, and jealousies, it was Thomas, the English indentured servant, who won Ann’s heart. Refusing to leave behind her children, her choice was abruptly taken from her hands with Peter’s request for divorce and the court’s sentence of lashings in Portsmouth and Newport. After an escape to Jamestown in the Virginia colony where Ann and her youngest son stay with family, she is eventually drawn back to Rhode Island, to her beloved, to her children, and to her sentenced punishment. Will she be welcome among her peers, or will she be but an outcast? Will her children forgive her? Readers will love this story for its historical color and reflection of the sacrifices of New England’s early settlers. This is a story of atonement, of courage, forgiveness and grace in deeply judgmental colonial America.
Read an excerpt. Click here.
Jean Goad
Ever wonder about the stories of your ancestors? Ms. Murphy has written this fascinating insight of the struggles of love, loss, courage and forgiveness set in the seventeenth-century colonial America. A Thousand Stars is definitely a hard-to-put-down read.”—Jean Goad, MA, descendant of the Tallman and Durfee families.
Karen Mead
A Thousand Stars is the story of journeys—especially the brave journey of being true to one's heart, a journey reflecting the courage of a young woman beginning life in an unknown country, confident love is all that is required. This story reminds us of the soul-altering sacrifices those before us were forced to make. A Thousand Stars is filled with love and hope, rage and pain, and ultimately peace and forgiveness. The characters will stay with you as dear friends long after the last page has been turned.--Karen Mead
Daryl Buckner
Upon reading A Thousand Stars I was pleasantly surprised to find that I am a time traveler! Ms. Murphy's writing is so precise and taut that I felt I was cast back into the late 1600s, and I, too, could share in Ann's romantic heights and misfortunes. A great read for anyone, any age! —Daryl Buckner, author of The Tutor and Candy from a Stranger
© 2016 Sandra Fox Murphy. All rights reserved.
