Behind every legend lies the truth…
Moving is nothing
new for ten-year-old Nikki Landry. Her father relocates their raggedy old
houseboat several times a year in search of better crabbing spots. However,
their latest move has brought her to a mysterious bayou where she feels
something is watching her from a nearby island.
Nikki learns of a
local legend about something sinister inhabiting those swamps, stealing the
souls of dogs...which would explain the strange howling sounds. Papa reassures
her there’s nothing on the island but gators and snakes. He should know. He’s
spent his whole life trapping and fishing those bayous and swamps…But maybe
there’s something Papa doesn’t know.
Nikki and her new
friends begin to uncover strange happenings from years ago that may have
started the old legend…and town folks aren’t talking.
Then her beloved
beagle goes missing.
Join Nikki as she
seeks to discover the real truth behind the legend of Ghost Dog Island…before
it’s too late.
************
Title: The Legend of Ghost Dog Island
Author Name: Rita Monette
Genre(s): Middle Grade, Adventure, Mystery
Tags: Adventure, mystery, middle grade, louisiana, bayou,
dogs
Length: Approx. 204 pages
E-book:
978-1-987976-00-7
Paperback:
978-0-9947490-9-3
Re-Release Date: September 1, 2015
Publisher: Mirror
World Publishing
********************
Excerpt:
“I’m going to hate Morgan City,” I complained to my dog
Snooper, “no matter what Papa says.”
My beagle laid his head on my lap and gazed up at me with
his watery eyes. He pretty much agreed with me on everything.
I sat on the deck of our old flat-bottomed houseboat as it
glided through the winding bayous. Papa’s fishing boat, filled with baskets of
line and crab crates, trailed behind on its rope. We were leaving Pierre
Part…Lydia…far behind. I rolled the legs of my overalls up and dangled my feet
over the edge.
“Nicole Landry, keep your feet out of that filthy water,”
Mama hollered from the doorway of the small living area of our floating home.
She wiped her hands on her stained apron, then fixed the comb that held her
long dark hair in a pile on top of her head. Mama was born and raised in New
Orleans, but left the big city for a life in the bayous with Papa. She never
looked back. At least that’s what she always told folks.
“They ain’t in the water, Mama.” I held my legs up so she
could see they were dry.
She opened the patched screened door and shooed a fly out,
before closing it and going back inside.
I twirled the end of my long black braid. Moving to a new
place always gave me a lump in my throat as big as a bullfrog. But I wasn’t
going to cry this time. I was ten years old after all.
I’d lived in that same house since the day I was born—as
Mama always tells it, "the coldest morn’ of 1946." But I couldn’t
rightly recall how many times it got tied up to a new dock. Mama liked to say
Papa never let the grass grow under his feet. But I could hardly think of a
time when his rubber boots ever touched grass.
Papa grew up in Morgan City, and he said folks there were
mighty friendly. But it seemed to me, most city dwellers weren’t too welcoming
to my kind, being from the wrong side of the levee and all. And the city was where
I’d have to go to school.
“And, as for making friends with any kids there, no way.” I
shook my finger in Snoop’s face. “Just to up and leave ’em behind anyway.”
He managed a tiny whimper, as if I was fussing at him.
I thought about Lydia standing on the Belle River Bridge
waving goodbye. My eyes burned, and I squeezed ’em shut. I felt in my pocket
for her note. I’d read it at least a hundred times since she’d handed it to me,
right before I went stomping down the ladder from her tree house. She’d
scribbled down her post office box address and "write me," then
signed her name with the little heart over the i like she always did.
“Hmph!” I told Snooper. “She’s crazy if she thinks I’m gonna
write her after what she did.”
Lydia Hebert was my best friend in the whole world…until
yesterday. It was a lot easier to leave while I was still mad at her. But now
it felt like an empty hole inside me.
**************
Amazon Link:
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About the Author:
Rita Monette was
born and raised in Southwest Louisiana. She loves to write stories set in the
beautiful, yet mysterious, bayous and swamps of her home state.
Her middle grade
series, The Nikki Landry Swamp Legends, is based on tales told by her father—who
made his living in those bayous—of reasons to stay out of the swamp.
She currently
lives with her husband, four lap dogs, and one lap cat, in the mountains of
Tennessee. Besides writing and illustrating, she loves watching the many birds
that make their habitat on the Cumberland Plateau, working in the garden, and
frequenting waterfalls.
*******
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Thanks, Tom. Appreciate you featuring my new book!
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