The cover for the story of Margaret “Mags” Bledsoe has had quite a reaction, with a lot of people saying they’ve never seen anything like it.  There will probably be a similar reaction to her story as well.  Here then is the cover reveal for A Most Precious Pearl and an unofficial blurb follows.

Winslow, GA – Summer 1919

Asa Caldwell is an embittered veteran of The Great War. As a Negro, he received no thanks for his service, and only has a lost leg to show for his sacrifice. Dishonorably discharged because he did not obey orders of his commander, he is sure that God has abandoned him in his hour of need.   He feels as if he has nothing to live for. With little remembrance of his career before the war, as a crusading journalist for The Pittsburgh Courier, he believes he has no purpose in life. To rouse him to action and give him a purpose, a church friend tells him about a spate of lynchings occurring in Georgia, in 1919–the start of Red Summer.

Mags Bledsoe is a devout woman who, over the course of The Great War, had worked her way up to management level in the textile mill of her hometown of Winslow, Georgia. Now that the men have returned, she has to give up her management job and go back to the ranks of the regular workers. When Asa Caldwell takes her job at the plant, they clash, because Mags doesn’t want to give up her job and prefers doing things her way better. Asa’s presence undermines her plan of revenge against the mill’s owner for the lynching of her childhood sweetheart.

Neither one of them can fight the growing attraction for one another, nor can they ignore the events of the Red Summer of 1919. Will Asa find a purpose in life that will compensate him for his lost leg?   Will Mags want to give up her idea of revenge in exchange for a new life in a strange place? Do they know how God’s love and understanding is working to bring them together?

Coming September 8, 2015