Carol McClain: A New York Yankee on Stinking Creek

Julie’s Note: Please welcome author Carol McClain as she shares a character interview from her latest release, A New York Yankee on Stinking Creek.

A Chat with Acclaimed Artist Kiara Rafferty

A new reporter from the LaFollette Press earned the job of interviewing the acclaimed artist Kirara Rafferty. This was her chance of a lifetime. When did Stinking Creek ever have someone so famous living here?

What brought you to Stinking Creek?

A time bomb.

A time bomb? (I waited but she offered nothing more.) What do you mean?

I went to sleep one night. The next day, I was transported back in time. Who ever heard of a land with no cell service, no Uber…no good coffee?

But why did you decide to come here?

My fiancée died suddenly. Little did he tell me his divorce never finalized. His wife and kids descended on our Manhattan condo and–

Wife and kids?

Reporter’s note. The glare from her amber eyes made me bite my tongue. If Kiara, the name the entire art world calls her, wasn’t so famous, and if I weren’t so desperate to break into journalism, I would’ve licked my pencil and gone home.

We sat awkwardly. Then, with my reporter’s keen sense, I noticed her face soften. Her eyes glistened as though she held back a world of hurt. I pressed on.

What do you think of this place?

She inhaled and studied her hands. Then with a tender voice that belied her earlier harshness, she spoke. At first, I hated it. Only a rigid religious family lived near me. We didn’t hit it off. Did I tell you this place is not part of the modern world? No one even knows what a chai latte is.

We are rural. You said ‘at first,’ what changed your mind?

It’s a long story. If I told it, it’d be a book. She laughed. Maybe that’s what I’ll do, write a book. I’ll call it A New York Yankee on Stinking Creek. The end of the story—now I’ll not give you a spoiler—is nothing’s as it seems on Stinking Creek.

What do you mean nothing’s as it seems?

I appear to hate it. My neighbor doesn’t like me. Shann, her brother-in-law, is supposed to marry Jorie. I don’t like kids, but Shann’s twins?

A smile etched her cheeks. Her amber eyes sparkled.

Sometimes, living a simpler life isn’t as drab as it seems. Just when my neighbor and I think we figured things out we discover, nothing’s as it seems on Stinking Creek.

NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM STINKING CREEK

Alone, again, after the death of her fiancé, abstract artist Kiara Rafferty finds herself on Stinking Creek, Tennessee. She wants out of this hillbilly backwater, where hicks speak an unknown language masquerading as English.  Isolated, if she doesn’t count the snakes and termites infesting her cabin, only a one-way ticket home to Manhattan would solve her problems.

Alone in a demanding crowd, Delia Mae McGuffrey lives for God, her husband, her family, and the congregation of her husband’s church. Stifled by rules, this pastor’s wife walks a fine line of perfection, trying to please them all. Now an atheist Yankee, who moved in across the road, needs her, too.

Two women. Two problems. Each holds the key to the other’s freedom.

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Purchase on BARNES AND NOBLE

Author Carol McClain is an eclectic artist and author. Her interests vary as much as the Tennessee weather—running, bassoons, jazz, stained glass and, of course, writing. She’s a transplant from New York who now lives in the hills of East Tennessee with her husband and overactive Springer spaniel.

She is the president of ACFW Knoxville and the secretary of the Authors’ Guild of Tennessee.

The world in East Tennessee intrigues her from the friendly neighbors to the beautiful hiking trails and the myriad wildlife.

Life is good in here.