A forgotten land, a lost heritage and a forbidden love lay in limbo for over a century. A determined spirit has been waiting to reveal the anonymous truth, and now, an unknowing family is about to release the restrictions of the liberations it yearns for. Vivian inherits a mysterious house from her mother. All family members with any relations to her have long since died, and so it seems there is no one to answer her many questions. As she begins the quest for knowledge, unsettling spirits will not let her rest. Her determination becomes a mission to unveil the truth of the past. She learns her Great Grandfather built the old mansion and hid many dark secrets between the walls. Shame, guilt and humiliation brought him to do the unthinkable. Vivian searches for answers of the relatives and slaves that disappeared on the plantation some hundred years earlier. The pursuit for clues, the visions of apparitions is all that leads her to the truth of what happened, or should I say, to find the resting place of those that roam. Slaves and relatives of the long ago past battle for freedom, only Vivian has the willpower to be unswerving and set them free. A window of the present reveals a passage to the past...

The Red Hills region is an idyllic setting filled with longleaf pines that stretches from Tallahassee, Florida, to Thomasville, Georgia. At its heart lies Tall Timbers, a former hunting plantation. In 1919, sportsman Henry L. Beadel purchased the Red Hills plantation to be used for quail hunting. As was the tradition, he conducted prescribed burnings after every hunting season in order to clear out the thick brush to make it more appealing to the nesting birds. After the U.S. Forest Service outlawed the practice in the 1920s, condemning it as harmful for the forest and its wildlife, the quail population diminished dramatically. Astonished by this loss and encouraged by his naturalist friend Herbert L. Stoddard, Beadel set his sights on conserving the land in order to study the effects of prescribed burnings on wildlife. Upon his death in 1958, Beadel donated the entire Tall Timbers estate to be used as an ecological research station. The Legacy of a Red Hills Hunting Plantation traces Beadel’s evolution from sportsman and naturalist to conservationist. Complemented by a wealth of previously unpublished, rare vintage photographs, it follows the transformation of the plantation into what its founders envisioned--a long-term plot study station, independent of government or academic funding and control.

This well researched historical novel tells the story of a fictional plantation near the coast of North Carolina in the years after the American Revolution.. It is a dark and cruel place for the workers on this farm. The master, Archie McLachlan, causes fear to run through the hearts of the slaves, except for one woman who speaks up deliberately and without fear whenever she wishes. Her name is Soola, and she fast becomes leader of the slaves and friend to the master's wife Gertrude. The friendship forms a triangle of competition, love, and hatred as "Massa Archie" becomes more and more dangerous, even towards his own son Robert and Soola's son John, even to a point where Soola begins to understand the meaning of fear. But, together, the leaders of the second generation can look for a future where hope might overcome fear.Thus, this story, Part One of a four-part series, not only recounts the family's beginnings at the Inveraray/Dogwood Plantation, but also introduces the second generation, who will appear again in the ensuing volumes. Slavery, the corruption caused by slavery, its close companions, race bigotry and injustice, and the laws and bitter politics that result from them, are featured and discussed throughout. While, in the foreground, the unique relationship between mistress and slave and their respective descendants triggers a wide-sweeping story of love, conflict, heartbreak, and forgiveness.

A forgotten land, a lost heritage and a forbidden love lay in limbo, for over a century. A determined spirit has been waiting to reveal the ominous truth. A family is a out to release the unknown and give the liberations it yearns for. Vivian inherits a mysterious house from her demised mother. All family members with any relations to her have long since died, and so it seems there is no one to answer her many questions. As she begins the quest for knowledge, unsettling spirits will not let her rest. Her determination becomes a mission to unveil the truth of the past. She learns her Great Grandfather built the old mansion and hid many dark secrets between the walls. Shame, guilt and humiliation brought him to do the unthinkable. Slaves and relatives of the long ago past battle for freedom, only Vivian has the willpower to be unswerving and set them free. Could it be true, did it happen? The answer is yes, I am sure it did. It is a tale our ancestors did not want us to know, yours and mine. The names and the places may be different, but just the same, I am sure it probably happened this way. Relive the secrets that our ancestors buried in the past. A window of the present reveals a passage to the past.

Miles Alexander, son of an Alabama sharecropper, is a successful business and entertainment lawyer with interests as distant as Costa Rica, where—much to his law partners’ dismay—he is about to acquire a local restaurant chain from the notorious coffee baron, Humberto Cabrera, one of the wealthiest and most mysterious dons of Central America. Miles’ success however has distanced him from his roots, altered his belief system, his political views, and the values that shaped him. Fearing Miles will suffer the same fate as his grandfather, who was crippled at about Miles’ age, Mary Rose Alexander, the Dove, through a series of transpersonal (quantum) exchanges with Miles while he’s in Costa Rica, draws him back to Ohio, where upon his arrival she suffers a disabling stroke that marks the beginning of a long and sometimes painful journey, during which time, in the afterglow of his Mother’s Light, Miles’ rediscovers what is truly pleasing to his soul, revealed to him in his hometown, where he is forced to confront issues of race prejudice, poverty and hopelessness, that are part of Lessons of Home. Can he get beyond the sudden and jarring rift with his white law partner, the antagonist Reid Lowell? Can he rise above temptation and unbridled materialism, and embrace compassion and community over competition and individualism? Or will he return to his old ways and suffer the fate his mother is all too aware of? Reid Milbank Lowell, scion of wealthy planters from Georgia, finds that his financial and lifestyle interests in the continued success of the law firm, Alexander, Seasongood & Lowell, far outweigh Miles’ personal interests, leading to a conflict between the two men that is nothing less than a clash of cultures. The law firm, and its representation of rappers and others antithetical to Reid’s antebellum roots, has led Reid to stray from the path his fathers would have him follow. Will he continue along the same path and suffer the same fate as the mythical Narcissus in a classic case of Death by Envy? Or will he change in time to avoid a painful ending and the wrath of his ancestors?

A city's history is made by its people, and for over 165 years the people of Shreveport, Louisiana have been building a rich heritage. From everyday residents to community leaders, from educators and clergy to entertainers and celebrities, Shreveport's citizens have created a lasting legacy. Here, readers are presented with a collective portrait of the city, including images from both its distant and not-so-distant past. Photographs of ordinary as well as extraordinary people, revealing their lives and their culture, preserve significant moments in time. While it is not possible to include them all in a single book, this volume does much to create a picture of the numerous talented, industrious, and spirited citizens who have contributed to the community's development. Their names are found on local streets, parks, buildings, and monuments; yet, their stories are often unknown. In this volume, readers will meet some of these colorful figures, putting faces with the names that present-day Shreveport residents know so well.