Brandy O'Bannon's grandmother reaches out to her for help in investigating the disappearance of her own mother, but both find that small towns keep their secrets close.

This is the eighth volume of Dr. Justin Glenn’s comprehensive history that traces the “Presidential line” of the Washingtons. Volume one began with the immigrant John Washington, who settled in Westmoreland Co., Va., in 1657, married Anne Pope, and became the great-grandfather of President George Washington. It continued the record of their descendants for a total of seven generations. Volume two highlighted notable members of the next eight generations, including such luminaries as General George S. Patton, the author Shelby Foote, and the actor Lee Marvin. Volume three traced the ancestry of the early Virginia members of this “Presidential Branch” back to the royalty and nobility of England and continental Europe. Volumes four, five, six, and seven treated respectively generations eight, nine, ten, and eleven. Volume Eight presents generations twelve through fifteen, comprising more than 8,500 descendants of the immigrant John Washington. Although structured in a genealogical format for the sake of clarity, this is no bare bones genealogy but a true family history with over 1,200 detailed biographical narratives. These strive to convey the greatness of the family that produced not only The Father of His Country but many others, great and humble, who struggled to build that country.

A small town hears a young mother's cries for help, but turns away. In time, she is all but forgotten, but not by the young daughter she has left behind nor by the child's mysterious benefactor. More than 80 years later, Hope Losterman wants answers about her mother's terrible fate. She enlists her granddaughter and amateur sleuth Brandy O'Bannon. Do the dead have tales to tell? A psychic offers an eerie warning, but Brandy risks all to pursue the truth. As she peels back layers of deceit, she learns that much in Micanopy is not what it seems. What she finds will change everything for Brandy, her grandmother, and a picturesque town that guards an ugly secret.

This is but a glimpse at that struggle and how it not only impacted men and their families but a way of life that can still be seen in many parts of Florida if one is willing to take time and look. Cowboys still saddle their horses and drive to an old set of cow pens and spend many an hour atop their favorite horse gathering, working and selling a new calf crop. They string miles of barbed wire and drive thousands of staples in fence rows built by their grandfathers and great grandfathers. To many, thou, it is lost and only a fading dream. Deep in the soul of Florida lies a great heritage called the True Florida Cracker. Not the urbanized rednecks that can afford a pair of Wrangler jeans, a shiny belt buckle, a fancy felt hat and black pointed toed cowboy boots but the true country boy and girl. Those who know the reason why you carry a pocket knife, how to keep it sharp and not cut yourself. Those who can appreciate a good pot of collard greens without the sweet cornbread you buy in a box. Those who are not afraid of taking a firm hold on a catfish as it flops around and taking out the hook without getting stuck. To those who had actually stepped into a fresh pile of cow crap and knows what it smells like and in a way appreciates the experience. To those who were taught to say yes mam and no sir and remember what respect is. To those who say to themselves that they were born in the wrong time.

Florida reporter Brandy O'Bannon is intrigued by a classified ad that asks an unidentified woman, who has been missing for twenty years, to come forward. The young mother and her two-year old daughter disappeared as Hurricane Agnes swept into the historic Gulf coast village of Cedar Key, although no fatalities were reported. When Brandy learns that a woman's skeleton was found a year later in the basement of one of the state's oldest and Cedar Key's most charming hotel, she begins a search for answers. The grisly fate of the private detective who placed the ad is soon discovered by Brandy's golden retriever. While trying to resolve both mysteries, Brandy ferrets out a new friend's true identity and guides her to self-knowledge. In the process, Brandy becomes the victim of attack, kidnapping, and hurricane. She outwits both nature and assailants, helps solve two brutal murders--and gets her front page story.

A deeply personal memoir that unearths a family history of racism, slaveholding, and trauma as well as love and sparks of delight Marcia Herman's family moved to Birmingham in 1946, when she was five years old, and settled in the steel-making city dense with smog and a rigid apartheid system. Marcia, a shy only child, struggled to fit in and understand this world, shadowed as it was by her mother's proud antebellum heritage. In 1966, weary of Alabama's toxic culture, Marcia and her young family left Birmingham and built a life in North Carolina. Later in life, Herman-Giddens resumed a search to find out what she did not know about her family history. Unloose My Heart interweaves the story of her youth and coming of age in Birmingham during the Civil Rights Movement together with this quest to understand exactly who and what her maternal ancestors were and her obligations as a white woman within a broader sense of American family. More than a memoir set against the backdrop of Jim Crow and the civil rights struggle, this is the work of a woman of conscience writing in the twenty-first century. Haunted by the past, Unloose My Heart is a journey of exploration and discovery, full of angst, sorrow, and yearning. Unearthing her forebears' centuries-long embrace of plantation slavery, Herman-Giddens dug deeply to parse the arrogance and cruelty necessary to be a slaveholder and the trauma and fear that ripple out in its wake. All this forced her to scrutinize the impact of this legacy in her life, as well as her debt to the enslaved people who suffered and were exploited at her ancestors' hands. But she also discovers lost connections, new cousins and friends, unexpected joys, and, eventually, a measure of peace in the process. With heartbreak, moments of grace, and an enduring sense of love, Unloose My Heart shines a light in the darkness and provides a model for a heartfelt reckoning with American history.