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Redeeming the Past: Families, Loves, and Lives Intertwine
Barbour Launches New Series from Tracey Bateman

Uhrichsville, OH—In 1948 Georgia, racial tensions ran high. The Civil War had been over for decades, but segregation still raged.

Author Tracey Bateman takes readers inside the tumultuous South in The Color of the Soul, the first book in Bateman’s Penbrook Diaries series, scheduled to launch in October 2005 from Barbour Publishing ($9.97). Bateman brings to light one man’s search for significance and the need to come to terms with a painful past.

Andy Carmichael hated being back in Georgia. A reporter looking to make his mark, all he wanted to do was get the story and return home to Chicago. Why the famous poet and novelist Miss Penbrook wanted Andy to compose her memoirs was beyond him, but it was the career break he needed, and all he really had, actually. His marriage to Lexie, tainted by his own string of infidelities, lay in shambles.

He had barely stepped foot on Georgian soil when the harassment started. Being black in the South in 1948—especially when you were from the North with skin too black to be white but too white to be black—led to problems. And with the ailing Miss Penbrook’s need for lengthy breaks between interview sessions, Andy thought he might never escape. But with the aid of Miss Penbrook’s diaries, her mother Madeline’s diaries, and the diaries of a young slave girl, Catherina (Cat), who lived with Miss Penbrook’s family, he begins to piece together her mysterious past.

As the country teeters on civil war, Madeline Penbrook, the daughter of an outspoken abolitionist, saves Cat and her mother from being separated on the auction block, much to the displeasure of her husband, Henry, a plantation owner. Things grow worse when Cat and Camilla, the Penbrooks’ daughter, squabble over a toy and Madeline suffers a miscarriage.

And so begins the downward spiral of the Penbrook family—Henry’s subsequent turn to alcohol and sexual assault of Cat, who becomes pregnant with Henry Jr.; Madeline’s untimely death from a mysterious illness; Camilla and Cat’s loveless relationship; Cat’s affair with a Northern general; Camilla’s marriage to Thomas Hanson, who always loved Cat; Henry Sr.’s demise in the war; and Cat’s determination to save the plantation for Henry Jr.’s benefit. But amidst all the darkness, is Shaw, a former slave who comes to live with Cat and Camilla and who radiates the love of God.

As he pours over the diaries, Andy makes a surprising discovery of Miss Penbrook’s true identity and her startling connection to his own life. And he finally finds answers to questions that have plagued him for nearly a lifetime.

Tracey Bateman serves as president of American Christian Fiction Writers and has more than a dozen stories in print. She believes all things are possible and encourages everyone to dream big. Tracey lives with her husband and four children in Missouri. For more information, visit www.traceybateman.com.

Coming October 2005. . .The Color of the Soul by Tracey Bateman, Barbour Publishing, 5 3/16" x 8", softcover, 352 pages, $9.97, ISBN 1-59310-444-8

Related Authors

• Tracey V. Bateman

Related Books

• Color Of The Soul, The (Trade Paper)