Please help me welcome Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy with 10 Moments that changed her life…
Giveaway!! Lee Ann is giving away a copy of her book to one lucky winner! She will draw a name from the commenters and the winner will have a choice between ebook, print and audio.
- My grandfather died when I was nine. Although not my first death in the family, I was very close to him and it impacted me in a huge way. Because of his death, I became even closer with my grandmother.
- I grew up in a blue-collar inner-city neighborhood. My extended family lived within a few blocks. My dad, after his Army service, had worked at a meat packing plant in my hometown but it closed and he became an over-the-road route salesman. At the end of fifth grade, he got a new job with the USDA and our family relocated more than 300 miles away to a small town.
- On the night of April 24, 1975, a major tornado ripped through the town and mobile home park where I lived. My dad was injured but survived. We lost everything except the clothes on our backs and what we could sift through the rubble to find. I saw both the best and the worst of human nature because of this experience.
- I joined Air Force Junior ROTC in high school. As part of the cadet corps, I found a niche in high school. I learned leadership, discipline, how to navigate an airplane, and how to lead. My highest rank was Major. I also met my future husband. I had the opportunity to travel to several different Air Force bases and enjoy experiences I would otherwise have never had.
- After high school graduation, I enrolled in classes at our local junior/community college. I had been undecided about continuing my education until right before graduation. I made lifelong friends, was on the campus newspaper staff and literary magazine. I first saw real publication in those years and continued my education at a four-year university.
- One of my English professors encouraged my writing when he told me I had the potential to become a writer. He stated it didn’t mean I would but that I could. My goal of becoming an author expanded with his words and led to a job in radio broadcasting. I wrote ad copy, voiced ads, and eventually worked an on-air shift. I hosted talk shows and interviewed several celebrities.
- I married my high school crush after many years apart. I was thirty-two and almost settled for a solitary life. Through marriage, I realized a long-time dream. We bought land in a wooded area in the Ozarks which fulfilled my dream of living in the woods.
- I had written and had publications for years but with my husband’s encouragement, I began to write seriously. I penned a novel, which eventually sold, and began my career as an author. My husband was my cheerleader, my beta reader, and was willing to take me anywhere in the country for research.
- I had children, first twin girls and then my son. I was a stay-at-home mom with them until my son was in the second grade, when I became a substitute teacher. When I changed jobs to become first a reporter then editor of the local paper, my children rolled with the upgrade. My kids are now grown but remain a vital part of my life.
- My husband, the rock I leaned on, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. His health declined and he had to stop working. The last two years of his life were filled with surgeries, hospital visits, long-term care facility stays, and additional health issues. By late 2018, it became evident he would not live long and was put on hospice care. He died in January 2019. I was not ready to become a widow. We would have celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary that year. I have, however, five years, later adapted to my status and kept on keeping on.
A story and a family as big as Texas.
Excerpt:
“I gotta tell you what I want,” he told them. “If I die.”
“You won’t,” Rachel said.
Boone shook his head a little and stopped. The slight movement made his head whirl.
“Just in case,” he said. Speaking took a lot of effort and strength he didn’t have. “You get six cowboys to carry me to bury. I want you both to walk behind, you’re all the family I got here. Then, the gals from the saloon can follow if they will. And I want a dead march. I reckon they should be in there somewhere with a drum to beat slow and a fife. Mac’ll know what I mean if you don’t. And get a preacher or someone to read that bit from Corinthians about seeing through a glass, and faith and charity.”
“Boone, you’re going to live,” Rachel said. She’d released his hand and was bathing his fevered forehead with cool water. “Don’t fret about all that now.”
He shut his eyes and tried not to worry. She sent his brother to fetch his friends, and when they returned, he listened.
“Get him to drink the laudanum,” Deacon said. “Mac, go down and see if you can’t get some hot water, maybe a cot or table. If one of us digs out that bullet where he lays, it’s gonna bleed all over the bed.”
Rachel lifted his head up so he could drink the opiate, and once he did, it wasn’t long until he could feel the numbing effects of it. Her capable fingers also undid the bandage and took away the garlic. Then, she washed the wound. The lye from the soap burned, and although she used a light hand, it hurt where she touched.
A cot was brought, and his friends lifted him onto it. Boone moaned, couldn’t help it because the movement sent pain radiating out from his chest through his body. The cot was lower than the bed, but as he began to slide into darkness, he was aware that Rachel held him on the right side, his brother on the left.
They were speaking to him, but it didn’t make much sense by that point. Boone liked the sound of their voices, especially Rachel’s, but his thoughts drifted toward Kentucky and home. His mind rolled back the years, and before he slipped into drug-induced oblivion, Boone relived scenes from his past, from his boyhood to the war to on the trail. He remembered when Ezekiel was born on a cold March day and the night his father died, sick with an ague. Boone saw his mother’s face when he rode away to war and remembered dancing with Ma at Jacob’s wedding.
Then, it all faded, and he knew nothing at all. His last thought was wondering if he’d wake again or if he would be dead.
Buy links:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/209018340-the-legacy-of-boone-wilson
https://www.worldcastlepublishing.net/lee-ann-sontheimer-murphy
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-legacy-of-boone-wilson-lee-ann-sontheimer-murphy/1144943447
https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAECSO1p72M
https://books.apple.com/mt/book/the-legacy-of-boone-wilson/id6478323004
Bio:
From an early age, Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy scribbled stories, inspired by the books she read, the family tales she heard, and even the conversations she overheard at the beauty shop where her grandmother had a weekly standing appointment. She was the little girl who sat at the feet of the elders and listened.
As an author, she has published more than sixty novels and novellas written as both Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy and as Patrice Wayne for historical fiction. She is also the author of a new Faery Folk series from Evernight Publishing writing as Liathán O’Murchadha. Her books are found in many places, online and in brick-and-mortar stores including some in both Ireland and Australia. Her current publishers include The Wild Rose Press, World Castle Publishing, Evernight Publishing, and Champagne Books.
She spent her early career in broadcast radio, interviewing everyone from politicians to major league baseball players and writing ad copy. In those radio years she began to write short stories and articles, some of which found publication. In 1994 she married Roy Murphy and they had three children, all now grown-up. Lee Ann spent years in the newspaper field as both a journalist and editor and was widowed in 2019.
She teaches 7th and 8th graders each Sunday at church.
In late 2020, she hung up her editor’s hat to return to writing fiction. A native of St. Joseph, Missouri, she lives and works in the rugged, mysterious, and beautiful Missouri Ozarks.
Author Alicia Dean 