The next book in the Daybreak series, LAND OF JOYS, was published in the fall of 2023! I've been having a wonderful time presenting it to the world through bookstore and library appearances.Here's an excerpt:
Charlotte and Petey were gathering greens along the riverbank when the horseless carriage came down the hill on the other side, in a stink of gasoline and a series of small explosions like the pops of a short-loaded revolver. Petey loped toward the ferry crossing for a better look, calling over her shoulder: “Grandma! Come see!” as if Charlotte hadn’t spied it as well, the first one either of them had ever seen outside of a picture book, looking more like a prehistoric insect than a manmade thing. Charlotte clumped behind as best she could over the sprout-thick ground, but Petey, coltish, reached the ferry well before her.
Petey danced from foot to foot on the ferry, waiting for Charlotte to catch up, as the car reached the flat ground across the river and a man climbed out to inspect its tires. Charlotte finally arrived, and Petey cranked the wheel of the geared windlass that her Uncle Newton had devised so that anyone, even an eighty-pound fourteen-year-old like Petey, could cable the ferry across the St. Francis.
“Maybe you should wait to see if he wants to cross over,” Charlotte said.
“He’ll want to. Why else would he be here? Anyway, I want to see that thing close up,” said Petey. “A little effort is a small price to pay.”
