Country Girl

Welcome to Sally's book-a-day-for-2017 blog. If unfamiliar with the blog, scroll down.

Country Girl (Post 128)

Country Girl (1994), is a family/historical about Martha Moon, born in the late 19th Century. Martha is a country girl, but she refuses to be a lady. She runs about with her friend Tom Penny, whose great ambition is to be a postman in the city. As they grow up, Tom asks Martha to come with him, but she's a country girl, and she sends him off alone. Later he returns for a visit. He has built a house and he asks her again to come and live with him. Martha refuses, so Tom tells her the house is not in the city. It has green paddocks and space for a cow and hens. Martha accepts and they are married.  Children are born, and as the family grows, the city encroaches. The children marry; all but the youngest and through it all, Martha repeats her mantra; she is a country girl and can never live in the city. Tom dies, and the last daughter to marry points out with more truth than tact that Martha DOES now live in the city for it has embraced Tom's house. 

   Martha promptly buys a country cottage, and gets herself a cow. Here she lives, and her grandchildren and great grandchildren join her fishing in the creek until "she is very old indeed".

Country Girl spans more than seventy years in a short illustrated book. It's more than the love story between Martha Moon and Tom Penny; it's about progress and longing and the desire to be oneself. Martha and Tom's first child is named Mary Ann; after my great-grandmother. Their son is Tom, after my great grandfather. The other daughters, Elizabeth and Jane, also have family names.

About the Blog 

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, manuscript assessor, editor, anthologist and reader. She runs http://www.affordablemanuscriptassessments.com and Prints Charming Books. (Sally is me, by the way, and I am lots of other things too, but these are the relevant ones for now.)

The goal for 2017 is to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. If you're an author, an aspiring author, a reader or just someone who enjoys windows into worlds, you might find this fun. The books are not in any special order, but will be assigned approximate dates, and pictures, where they exist. If you enjoyed a post, or want to ask about any of my books or my manuscript assessment service, leave me a message.