The Law of Moses
Release: 11/27/14
Cover design by: Hang Le
Hosted by: Alpha Literary Services
If
I tell you right up front, right in the beginning that I lost him, it will be
easier for you to bear. You will know it’s coming, and it will
hurt. But you’ll be able to prepare.
Someone
found him in a laundry basket at the Quick Wash, wrapped in a towel, a few
hours old and close to death. They called him Baby Moses when they shared his
story on the ten o’clock news – the little baby left in a basket
at a dingy Laundromat, born to a crack addict and expected to have all sorts of
problems. I imagined the crack baby, Moses, having a giant crack that ran down
his body, like he’d
been broken at birth. I knew that wasn’t what the term meant,
but the image stuck in my mind. Maybe the fact that he was broken drew me to
him from the start.
It
all happened before I was born, and by the time I met Moses and my mom told me
all about him, the story was old news and nobody wanted anything to do with
him. People love babies, even sick babies. Even crack babies. But babies grow
up to be kids, and kids grow up to be teenagers. Nobody wants a messed up
teenager.
And
Moses was messed up. Moses was a law unto himself. But he was also strange and
exotic and beautiful. To be with him would change my life in ways I could never
have imagined. Maybe I should have stayed away. Maybe I should have listened. My
mother warned me. Even Moses warned me. But I didn’t stay away.
And
so begins a story of pain and promise, of heartache and healing, of life and
death. A story of before and after, of new beginnings and never-endings. But
most of all...a love story.
The Law of Moses
Excerpt
“You still talk to your
horses.”
I jerked and Sackett
shifted, not liking the spike of energy that shot through me or the fact that
my fingers had yanked at his mane.
Moses stood silhouetted
in the barn door, holding what looked to be a large canvas in his hand.
I hadn’t realized I was
still talking to Sackett, and I did a quick examination of what I’d just said.
I believe I had just uttered an embarrassing rant on people named Moses not
being allowed in Georgia. “Oh, Lord,” I prayed silently but fervently, “you can
make the blind man see and the deaf man hear so it shouldn’t be too much to ask
to make this man forget everything he’s just seen and heard.”
“What does Sackett think
about those new, stricter laws in Georgia?”
I looked up at the
rafters, “Hey, thanks for comin’ through for me, Lord.”
I loosened the cinch that
secured the saddle around Sackett’s middle and pulled the saddle from his back,
hoisting it onto the saddle horse and removing the blanket beneath without
looking at Moses. I was kind of surprised that he remembered Sackett’s name.
Moses took a few steps
inside the barn and I could see a small smile playing around his lips. I gave
Sackett a firm pat on his rump signaling I was done, and he trotted off,
clearly eager to go.
“You’re back.” I said,
refusing to embarrass myself further by getting angry.
“I took Tag home. He had
big plans to train for his next fight old school, like Rocky, but discovered
that it’s a little more appealing in the movies. Plus, I don’t do a very good
Apollo Creed.”
“Tag’s a fighter?”
“Yeah. Mixed martial arts
stuff. He’s pretty good.”
“Huh.” I didn’t know what
else to say. I didn’t know anything about the sport. “Didn’t Apollo Creed die in
one of the movies?”
“Yeah. The black guy
always dies at the hands of the white man.”
I rolled my eyes, and he
grinned, making me grin with him before I remembered that I was embarrassed and
ticked off that he had kissed me and left town. It felt a little too much like
the past. The grin slipped from my face and I turned away, busying myself
shaking out the saddle blankets.
“So why did you come
back?” I kept my eyes averted. He was quiet for a minute, and I bit my lips so
I wouldn’t start to babble into the awkward silence.
“The house needs more
work,” he replied at last. “And I’m thinking of changing my name.”
My head shot up, and I
met his smirk with confusion.
“Huh?”
“I heard there was this
new law in Georgia. Nobody named Moses can even visit. So I’m thinking a name
change is in order.”
I just shook my head and
laughed, both embarrassed and pleased at his underlying meaning. “Shut up,
Apollo,” I said, and it was his turn to laugh.
Amy
Harmon knew at an early age that writing was something she wanted to do, and
she divided her time between writing songs and stories as she grew. Having
grown up in the middle of wheat fields without a television, with only her
books and her siblings to entertain her, she developed a strong sense of what
made a good story.
Amy
Harmon has been a motivational speaker, a grade school teacher, a junior high
teacher, a home school mom, and a member of the Grammy Award winning Saints Unified
Voices Choir, directed by Gladys Knight. She released a Christian Blues CD in
2007 called “What I Know” – also available on Amazon and wherever digital music
is sold. She has written five novels, Running Barefoot, Slow Dance in
Purgatory, Prom Night in Purgatory, the New York Times Bestseller, A Different
Blue, Making Faces and most recently, Infinity + One.
Her
newest book, The Law of Moses releases
November 27, 2014.
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Great review! Thank you for participating in the Tour of Gratitude and for supporting the release of The Law of Moses.
ReplyDeleteThanks and so happy to support Amy. She's loved hard here.
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