Sweet Music - Volume One of The Moonlight Ridge Series

What kind of music drifts across the mountain ridge above the tiny rural Alabama town of Eden, and what are the secrets hidden on the mountain paths, under the ancient trees, and under the mysterious moon of Moonlight Ridge?

Discover a family history filled with a legacy of curiosity, courage and delightful eccentricity, in a setting where the natural fauna and flora of the woods of Alabama create a wonderland for two unusual children.

Can you hear children's voices, singing and laughing as they dance beneath sweet gum, dogwood, and sycamore trees, with the gentle Alabama breeze murmuring leafy music around them?

Wouldn't you like to see what these two precocious cousins see, hear the whispery secrets, and feel the ancient magic in the deep woods and on dusty red-dirt trails, as they look for answers and follow their hearts 'out on the mountain?'

.

All these secrets and mysteries come to life on the pages of

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

Read it and discover an enchanted world you'll not soon forget.

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge
A Novel

by

Ramey Channell

Those Kids Are Back! Lily Claire and Willie T. on Moonlight Ridge

I'm so happy to announce that my debut novel is now Book One of the Moonlight Ridge Series, in a beautiful new edition and available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kindle. 

Pick up my new edition from Amazon here 

and from Barnes & Noble here

and from Ingram Books for retailers here

I'll be announcing upcoming book signings here, so stay tuned.

And, Book Two of The Moonlight Ridge Series is on its way.

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

"Willie T. and I were expert doodle bug catchers. But once you've caught a doodle bug, there's not much to do except look at it and say, "Yep, that's a doodle bug!" then put him back in his doodle bug hole. And ugly? Hesperolean abdominalis is a gruesome sight." - Lily Claire Nash

I'm pleased to announce that Book One of the Moonlight Ridge Series, Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge will be available very soon in the long awaited second edition: projected date, around the third week of April 2015! I'm so happy to share this news with all my readers, fans, and friends.

Watch for updates and announcements of book-signing locations and times.

It's almost doodle bug season!

The Page 69 Test

Marshall McLuhan, the guru of The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), recommends that the browser turn to page 69 of any book and read it. If you like that page, buy the book. I applied the Page 69 test to my novel, and found that it works! Browse powerfully and read page 69!

                                Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge - page 69
                                                                       .

I woke up gradually, drifting in and out of sleep, the afternoon heat on me like a heavy wool blanket. My mouth was dry and I drowsily tried to remember the last time I’d had a drink of water.“Mama,” I mumbled, wanting to ask for a glass of water. But my lips barely moved and my voice didn’t work right because my mouth and throat were so dry.

My eyelids were heavy and hard to open, but finally I was able to focus my eyes on my mama. She was standing at the screen door with her back to me. She was talking to someone standing on the other side of the screen, and as I became fully awake I saw the uniform and heard the gravelly voice, and I recognized Clyde Tucker, the chief of police.

My mother’s hand was on the screen door, as if she intended to keep the tall, pot-bellied policeman out of her house.

“Well, Clyde, she’s been right there asleep in that chair all afternoon, right there where she is now,” Mama said.

Officer Clyde Tucker leaned a little to one side so he could get a better look at me, I guess. He looked right at me, his forehead wrinkled under the bill of his policeman’s cap.

“Don’t your sister have a little boy about that same age?” he asked, leaning a little further, his fat red face right up against the screen.

“My sister’s little boy is quarantined with the whooping cough! Clyde Tucker, don’t you come around here asking questions about our children! It sounds like you’ve got plenty to keep you busy without scaring our children to death. What in the world made you come here asking questions?”

*

Possum Love

Woni's Wonderful Bookshelf

Saturday November 20th was a fun day in Sumiton, Alabama. I signed copies of Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge at Woni's Bookshelf, met some very interesting and friendly book lovers, and just enjoyed the beautiful day.

Here, pictured left to right: Rick Watson, Woni Lawrence, Grace Smith and Jilda Watson. I'm seated in the middle. Dale Short made the photo and we're all looking at him!

Woni's Bookshelf is owned by Woni Lawrence and located at 140 Hull Road, Suite 2 in Sumiton, Alabama. There's always something going on at Woni's: writing classes, book talks, visits from door-to-door veggie salesmen, etc. And the book selection is awesome, along with intriguing and irresistable gifts of all kinds. New books, old books, gift items galore!

Book Review from Alabama Writers' Forum

Here we are, heading into the holidays, a perfect time for good books and good stories. Just out is a truly great review of Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, posted on Alabama Writers' Forum's First Draft website. I was thrilled by the comprehensive description, and the way the reviewer identified with both the story and the characters. I just had to share this!

First Draft Reviews Online, Alabama Writers' Forum, November 2010
http://www.writersforum.org/

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge
Reviewed by Perle Champion

In Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge, Ramey Channell doesn't narrate as Lily Claire, she is Lily Claire.

For those of you who've had no children, and/or have forgotten what it's like to be one, buckle up. This is not a slow walk of a book. Lily Claire's breathless detailed telling of just about everything that happens in her small world is told as if it was the most important thing in all the world, and you should know it.

Channell steps into Lily Claire's very person and stays there throughout the entire book. You, the reader, are her confidant as she learns of ordinary heroes, and ponders the serendipity of life. You are privy to the secret world of a childhood whose freedom few have known and many today would envy.

Around the mysterious map to an imagined treasure she and Willie T. find in an unlikely place, she weaves her history and that of all the diverse and sometimes eccentric folks and topics that inform her world. All are treated with that light childish and non-judgmental matter-of-factness that is so refreshing and true to the nature of the very young.

There is no heavy hand here about the "Ku Kluxes' " quick-to-lynch mentality or the superstitious nature of rural peoples that make the white lies Willie T. and Lily Claire tell necessary. It's just plain necessary to protect the slow one and the black one in their midst, who are the most likely scapegoats for a crime that was no crime at all.

Channell has the sure cadence of a storyteller that is not only simple, sincere, and to the point, but it's part of the music. Is there music on Moonlight ridge? Yes, but it is not just played, sung, or spoken aloud. It exists in the steady pace of the story, the people, the laughter, the polysyllabic names, and the language.

Having lived in the south off and on for many years, I didn't need the handy glossary at the back of the book to tell me that "boocoos" means "lots." Just goes to show that being raised in the South is useful. This book was not just boocoos of fun to read, it is a gentle reminder of my own idyllic summers when every day held the promise of adventure, just like Lily Claire's.

Perle Champion is a freelance writer and artist.


Thanks so much, Perle, for this wonderful and greatly appreciated review!

Alabama Author's Debut Novel

What kind of music drifts across the mountain ridge above the tiny rural Alabama town of Eden, and what are the secrets hidden on the mountain paths, under the ancient trees, and under the mysterious moon of Moonlight Ridge?

Discover a family history filled with a legacy of curiosity, courage and delightful eccentricity, in a setting where the natural fauna and flora of the woods of Alabama create a wonderland for two unusual children.


Can you hear children's voices, singing and laughing as they dance beneath sweet gum, dogwood, and sycamore trees, with the gentle Alabama breeze murmuring leafy music around them?


















Wouldn't you like to see what these two precocious cousins see, hear the whispery secrets, and feel the ancient magic in the deep woods and on dusty red-dirt trails, as they look for answers and follow their hearts 'out on the mountain?'

All these secrets and mysteries come to life on the pages of

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge.

Read it and discover an enchanted world you'll not soon forget.

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge

ISBN 9780984083688

by

Ramey Channell

Published by Chalet Publishers LLC