Like
I Used To Dance
by
Barbara Frances
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GENRE:
Fiction
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BLURB:
“Oh,
Grace, our kids,” laughed Bud. “Where did we go wrong? One
marries God, another a Jew and the last one, the devil!”
Texas,
1951. The Wolanskis—Grace, Bud and their three grown children—are
a close-knit clan, deeply rooted in their rural community and
traditional faith. On their orderly farm, life seems good and
tomorrow always holds promise.
But
under the surface, it’s a different story. Grace is beset by dark
memories and nameless fears that she keeps secret even from Bud.
Their son Andy has said no to becoming a farmer like his dad and,
worse, fallen in love with a big-city Jewish girl. Youngest child
Regina is trapped in a loveless marriage to an abusive, alcoholic
husband. Even “perfect” daughter Angela’s decision to become a
nun takes an unforeseen turn.
And
then Ceil Dollard breezes into town.
Ceil—wealthy,
sophisticated, irrepressible—is like a visitor from Mars. She’s a
modern woman. She drives a car and wears pants. She blows away
tradition and certainty, forcing Grace to face her fears and brave a
changing world. Through Ceil, Grace learns about courage and
freedom—but at the risk of losing Bud.
Barbara
Frances’ sparkling, richly human novel takes you back to a time
when Ike was president and life was slower, but people were the same
as now. You’ll encounter a cast of characters storm-tossed by
change, held together by love. Written with compassion, humor and
suspense, Like I Used to Dance will charm you, warm you and even
squeeze a few tears, from its opening number to the last waltz.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Excerpt:
Ceil had
brought over a bottle of wine and some fancy cheeses. Grace felt like
a celebrity. She asked Bud and Ceil to sit on the couch in the
parlor. Slowly and carefully she furled the bed sheet from the easel
revealing the newly dried canvas. It was a painting she had copied
from an old black and white photo of the children.
Nine-year-old
Andy stood on the creek bank with his little fishing pole while ten-
year-old Angela held a wriggly worm for him. To the side and in the
background five-year-old Regina looked on with awe at her older
siblings.
There
was a long moment of silence before Bud could catch his breath. “I’ve
never felt anything like this. I’m… It touches my heart,” he
said and began to applaud. Ceil joined in. Grace couldn’t remember
such joy flooding over her, not even when her children were born. The
wine was opened and for the first time in her life Grace got tipsy
over the course of the evening. Sitting between Bud and Ceil, she
hugged one and then the other like a child who had been away from its
mom and dad for several days.
“Ceil,
I know I promised you my first painting,” she said, slurring her
words, “but this one’s for Bud. I hope you don’t mind.” Bud
kissed her on the cheek. He felt like a prince.
Ceil
paused with a serious expression on her face. “Well, I guess I’ll
have to take back all the brushes, canvases and stuff I got you.”
Laughter sailed through the open windows.
A few
days later, Regina dropped by and stood for a long time silently
taking in Grace’s painting. Grace marveled at how pretty she was
these days. She was regaining her health and an interest in her
appearance. Finally, Regina said softly, “You paint like I used to
dance.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
**SPOILER FREE**
Amazingly well written! The details of the characters are very much thought out and well described. The story plot will keep you reading and reading.. There is not a dull page in this book. A moment in time that I was reading I was sitting at the dr's office and had to be tapped by the nurse who had called my name several times. I never heard the nurse due to being so wrapped up in the book! This is one book that you must read!
*Received for an honest review*
Amazingly well written! The details of the characters are very much thought out and well described. The story plot will keep you reading and reading.. There is not a dull page in this book. A moment in time that I was reading I was sitting at the dr's office and had to be tapped by the nurse who had called my name several times. I never heard the nurse due to being so wrapped up in the book! This is one book that you must read!
*Received for an honest review*
AUTHOR
Bio and Links:
Barbara
Frances has plenty of stories and a life spent acquiring them.
Growing up Catholic on a small Texas farm, her childhood ambition was
to become a nun. In ninth grade she entered a boarding school in Our
Lady of the Lake Convent as an aspirant, the first of several steps
before taking vows. The Sisters were disappointed, however, when she
passed up the habit for the University of North Texas, where she
graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and Theater Arts.
Her
professors were similarly disappointed when she passed up a
postgraduate degree to become a stewardess for American Airlines.
Barbara, however, never looked back. “In the Sixties, a stewardess
was a glamorous occupation.” Some highlights include an evening on
the town with Chuck Berry and “opening the bar” for a planeload
of young privates on their way to Vietnam.
Barbara
eventually returned to Texas and settled down. Marriage, children,
school teaching and divorce distracted her from storytelling, but one
summer she and a friend coauthored a screenplay. “I never had such
fun! I come from a family of storytellers. Relatives would come over
and after dinner everyone would tell tales. Sometimes they were even
true.”
The next
summer Barbara wrote a screenplay on her own. Others followed,
including Two Women, a finalist in the 1990 Austin Screenwriters
Festival. Three more were optioned: Silent Crossing, The Anniversary
and Sojourner Truth. Barbara left teaching and continued to work on
her screenplays. In 1992, exhausted by endless rewrites she did
something many screenwriters threaten but few carry out. She turned
down an option renewal, done forever with writing—or so she
thought.
It was
not to be. One day a friend’s child found and read Lottie’s
Adventure, her script for a children’s movie. At her young fan’s
urging, Barbara turned it into a book, published by Positive Imaging,
LLC, her husband Bill’s press. For Like I Used to Dance Barbara
drew upon childhood memories and “front porch stories.” Her next
novel, Shadow’s Way, is a “Southern Gothic tale” about a woman
caught in the struggle to keep her beloved plantation home from a
scheming archbishop.
Barbara
and her husband Bill Benitez live in Austin, Texas. She can be
reached at:
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