Merry Mary by Ashley Farley
Publication date: October 15th 2015
Genres: Adult, Romance
Publication date: October 15th 2015
Genres: Adult, Romance
Synopsis:
A young woman longing for a child stumbles upon a Christmas miracle.
Investigative journalist Scottie Darden is photographing the homeless for her Lost Souls series when she makes a discovery that could change her life forever. Under a makeshift tent in subzero temperatures in a downtown city park, she finds a woman’s dead body with her infant child. Without her cell phone to call for help, Scottie makes the split-second decision to take the baby home. Her initial instinct is to provide the baby with food and shelter until her family can be located. But as her fondness for the baby grows, she finds herself facing a life on the run or worse—prison time for abduction.
Curl up with Merry Mary this holiday season. A heartwarming story of the powerful connection between a caring soul and an innocent child in need.
Investigative journalist Scottie Darden is photographing the homeless for her Lost Souls series when she makes a discovery that could change her life forever. Under a makeshift tent in subzero temperatures in a downtown city park, she finds a woman’s dead body with her infant child. Without her cell phone to call for help, Scottie makes the split-second decision to take the baby home. Her initial instinct is to provide the baby with food and shelter until her family can be located. But as her fondness for the baby grows, she finds herself facing a life on the run or worse—prison time for abduction.
Curl up with Merry Mary this holiday season. A heartwarming story of the powerful connection between a caring soul and an innocent child in need.
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AUTHOR BIO:
Ashley
Farley is a wife and mother of two college-aged children. She grew up
in the salty marshes of South Carolina, but now lives in
Richmond, Virginia, a city she loves for its history and traditions.
After her brother died in 1999 of an accidental overdose, she turned to writing as a way of releasing her pent-up emotions. She wrote SAVING BEN in honor of Neal, the boy she worshipped, the man she could not save. SAVING BEN is not a memoir, but a story about the special bond between siblings.
HER SISTER'S SHOES—June 24, 2015—is a women's novel that proves the healing power of family.
Look for MERRY MARY this holiday season, a heartwarming story of the powerful connection between a caring soul and an innocent child in need.
After her brother died in 1999 of an accidental overdose, she turned to writing as a way of releasing her pent-up emotions. She wrote SAVING BEN in honor of Neal, the boy she worshipped, the man she could not save. SAVING BEN is not a memoir, but a story about the special bond between siblings.
HER SISTER'S SHOES—June 24, 2015—is a women's novel that proves the healing power of family.
Look for MERRY MARY this holiday season, a heartwarming story of the powerful connection between a caring soul and an innocent child in need.
Author links:
Excerpt from Merry Mary
“Shh, don’t cry,” she said,
rubbing the baby’s tummy.
What would become of the baby?
Scottie didn’t think the Commonwealth had the authority to place
the baby up for adoption without permission of next of kin, which
meant the baby would be placed in a foster home until the police
could track down the father. If the father even wanted the child. If
the father even knew he was the father.
The baby began to wail, presumably
with hunger. “Don’t worry, little one.” She picked the baby up
and held her tight. “We’ll get it all sorted out. In the
meantime, I have plenty of formula and diapers to keep you
comfortable.”
By the time Scottie got the baby
inside, and mixed up a bottle from the supplies in her baby cabinet
in the kitchen, the little girl was screaming, flailing her arms and
legs in hunger. Scottie plopped down on the leather sofa in the
adjoining family room, propped her snow boots up on the coffee table,
and brought the bottle’s nipple to the baby’s mouth. The infant
took the nipple between her lips, then thrust it back out with her
tongue. Scottie turned the bottle upside down on her arm, letting a
few drops of formula leak from the hole in the nipple, before
returning the nipple to the baby’s lips. When she tasted the
formula, the baby began to suck greedily.
“Careful now, baby girl. Don’t
drink too fast or you’ll upset your tummy.” The baby stared up at
Scottie with bright eyes. “We need to give you a name, don’t we?”
Scottie had been in the process of
picking out names for her baby when her daughter was stillborn at
thirty-one weeks. She’d been torn between Kate and Liza, after her
grandmothers Katherine and Elizabeth. She ended up calling the baby
Angel, which seemed appropriate for an innocent child who never drew
her first breath.
Scottie’s eyes traveled the
room, coming to rest on the nativity scene on the mantle above the
fireplace. “Why don’t we call you Mary after the Virgin Mary?”
She caught sight of the needlepoint pillow Brad had brought down from
the attic—a green background with Merry Christmas in curlicue
script in red across the front. “Or Merry, which seems appropriate
for a spunky little girl like you.”
The baby stopped sucking and
smiled up at her.
“I agree,” Scottie said. “I
like them both as well. Merry Mary it is, then.
The first rays of pink sunshine ushered
in another day of suffering for the people who called Monroe Park in
downtown Richmond home. An early winter storm had dumped six inches
of snow on the city. With no clouds to blanket in warmth,
temperatures had dipped into the teens for the third night in a row.
Scottie Darden parked her 4Runner
alongside the dirty snowbanks on Main Street. She pulled her stocking
cap down over her blonde mane and tucked her camera inside her down
coat. Grabbing the two Bojangles’ bags and carton of coffee from
the backseat, she trudged through the snow to a cluster of men and
women huddled around a burning trash can.
Eyeing the bags of food, the group
of five homeless people navigated toward Scottie. She handed out
sausage biscuits and paper cups of coffee.
Scottie had stumbled upon the Five
by accident a year ago while investigating a series of muggings in
the area. Their despondent faces had such a profound impact on
Scottie that she’d returned the next day with warm blankets and
buckets of fried chicken from Lee’s. Their gratitude had moved her
even more, and over the next twelve months, she’d stopped by on a
regular basis, always delivering nourishment and supplies. She’d
seen others come and go, but this core group of five banded together
like a family.
“I brought extras today.”
Scottie held up the second bag.
Mabel gestured toward a row of
makeshift tents fifty feet in front of them. Her name wasn’t really
Mabel. At least not as far as Scottie knew. With gray hair pulled
back from her café au lait face, the old woman reminded Scottie of
the housekeeper who once worked for her grandmother.
Scottie had never exchanged names
with any of the Five. She’d grown to know them by their physical
appearances instead.
Buck was a strapping black man of
about thirty, the one Scottie feared the most because of the temper
she sensed smoldering just beneath the surface Then there was Pops,
the oldest male, with leathery skin the color of dark chocolate.
While he never showed his teeth, Scottie often detected the hint of a
smile tugging along his lips. She’d named the woman with the plain
face and dull green eyes Miss Cecil after her third grade teacher.
She referred to the man in the wheelchair, with both legs amputated
at the knee, as Dan, after Lieutenant Dan in the movie Forrest Gump.
Scottie offered each of the Five
another biscuit before moving to the makeshift tents. She passed out
biscuits to women and men who were buried under blankets and sleeping
bags. She heard the faint sound of crying outside the fourth tent.
She tapped lightly on the cardboard door. When no one responded and
the crying grew louder, she pulled back the cardboard and peeked
inside.
“Hello in there,” she called
in a soft voice. “Can I interest you in some breakfast?”
The crying intensified to a
squall. Beneath a threadbare blanket, Scottie made out the unmoving
form of an adult-size body and the flailing limbs of a smaller figure
next to it.
“Hello.” Scottie dropped to
her knees and crawled inside. “Can I hold your baby for you while
you eat a biscuit?”
When the adult body remained
still, Scottie peeled back the blankets to reveal a baby—three or
four months old if she had to guess—with blonde peach fuzz on top
of her head and a beet-red face. A girl, judging from the dirty pink
fleece sleeper she was wearing. She pulled the covers back the rest
of the way and gasped at the sight of the woman’s gray skin and
purple lips. Scottie assumed the woman was the baby’s mother. She
backed slowly out of the tent. “Someone, please help!” she cried.
“I think this woman in here is dead.”
The Five fled the scene, along
with every other homeless man and woman in sight. Scottie patted her
pockets for her phone, then remembered she’d left it connected to
the charger on her bedside table. She surveyed the area for help—a
policeman, a student, a businessman on his way to work—but the park
was deserted.
Scottie crawled back inside and
picked up the baby, rocking her back and forth until she settled down
a bit. She scooted over closer to the baby’s mother and checked her
wrist and neck for a pulse, but there was none. The woman had been
dead long enough for her skin to grow cold. Her eyes were closed, but
her rosy lips were turned up into a smile, as though she’d seen an
angel. Poor woman was probably no more than twenty years old.
Scottie pulled the blanket over
the woman’s face and said a silent prayer.
Getting to a phone to call for
help was the only thing on her mind when she zipped the baby inside
her coat and made a dash for her car.
Interview
with Ashley Farley for Merry Mary
Tell
us about Merry
Mary
in one sentence.
Merry
Mary
is a
heartwarming story about the powerful connection between a caring
soul and an innocent child in need.
What
do you think readers will enjoy most about your story? I
hope readers, especially mothers, will identify with my protagonist’s
desperate longing for a child and empathize with the decisions she
makes. I also believe they will enjoy the close relationship Scottie
shares with her brother, Will.
Are
you working on a new novel? Yes,
the sequel to Merry
Mary,
which I plan to release in Spring 2016. My currently untitled WIP is
a full-length romantic political suspense starring Scottie, Will and
the charming Guy Jordan.
Who
or what was the inspiration for your story? I
created my protagonist, photojournalist Scottie Darden, out of my
love for photography and my desire to see the world. Understanding
some of the technical aspects of photography adds credibility to my
story. All of my plots focus on familial relationships. My first
novel, Saving
Ben,
which I wrote as a tribute to my brother who died of a drug overdose
in 1999, depicts a college-aged brother and sister. Her
Sister’s Shoes
portrays three middle-age sisters struggling to balance the demands
of career and home while remaining true to themselves. Scottie Darden
shares a close relationship with her brother In Merry
Mary
and the upcoming sequel. Certain aspects of their relationship remind
me of my brother and me, but mostly I created them out of the special
bond between my own children, who are close in age—21 and 20—as
well as spirit.
What
is your favorite thing to do to get ready for the holidays?
Definitely
not shopping. Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, I put my
small artificial tree up in the corner of my kitchen, where I spend
most of my time, and decorate it with food-related ornaments. I enjoy
this tree so much more than the live tree I put up in the living
room, which stresses me out and makes me a bah humbug.
What
is your favorite holiday . . .
Movie?
I’ve seen
The Holiday
with Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black at least a
dozen times. Jack Black is lovable. Cameron Diaz wears the most
amazing clothes. And Jude Law steels my heart every time when he
cries at the end.
Novel?
The
Christmas Train
by David Baldacci. Disillusioned journalist Tom Langon meets a host
of interesting characters as he travels from Washington to Los
Angeles by train for Christmas.
Song?
Mariah
Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You”
Tradition?
It’s all about the food for my family. We have many traditions for
the holidays, but our Christmas Eve meal is the most important. We
invite the whole family over for a formal sit-down dinner. Even
though we have the same dishes every year, everyone always raves
about Emeril Lagasse’s Twice Baked Potato Casserole, which I
thought you might enjoy.
10
large russet baking potatoes (about 7 pounds total)
8
tablespoons (1 stick) plus 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, at room
temperature
1
cup sour cream
1/2
cup heavy cream
2
teaspoons salt
1
1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3/4
pound bacon, cooked until crisp and crumbled
1/2
pound sharp white Cheddar, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3/4
pound mild Cheddar, grated (3 cups)
1/2
cup finely chopped green onions
3
eggs, lightly beaten
Preheat
the oven to 400 degrees F.
Scrub
the potatoes well and rinse under cool running water. Pat dry with
paper towels and prick the potatoes in several places with a fork.
Place the potatoes in the oven and bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15
minutes, or until tender. Remove from the oven and set aside on a
wire rack until cool enough to handle.
When
the potatoes have cooled, cut each potato in half and, using a spoon
or a melon baller, scoop the flesh out of the skins, leaving as
little flesh as possible. Place the potato flesh in a large bowl and
add 1 stick of the butter, the sour cream, heavy cream, salt, and
pepper and mash until chunky-smooth. Add the bacon, cubed white
Cheddar, half of the grated Cheddar, the green onions, and eggs and
mix thoroughly.
Butter
a 9 by 13-inch casserole with the remaining tablespoon of butter and
reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees F.
Place
the seasoned potato mixture in the prepared casserole and top with
the remaining grated Cheddar. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until
bubbly around the edges and heated through and the cheese on top is
melted and lightly golden. Serve hot.
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