On Sunday in the middle of a downpour, my husband, my hero, was outside digging a trench to re-route water away from the front walk. He ended up in the last few minutes placing a piece of plywood over the growing puddle and covering it with industrial rugs from his office. He saved the day. People began arriving.
They came to greet the newest author in our family, Anne L. Simon, my mother-in-law. Following a degree from Wellesley, law school at Yale, a move to Louisiana, a law degree from LSU, practicing law with her husband, raising three smart children, running a successful campaign for judge, acting as a district judge, teaching at LSU law school, and serving as an ad-hoc judge for the Louisiana Supreme Court, Anne decided she wanted to be an author. Through grit and determination, not to mention high intelligence and a gift for writing, she published her first crime novel, Blood in the Cane Field.
Those of you from Louisiana will love this book for its fine attention to the Louisiana landscape. You may even recognize a few of the characters. Others will enjoy the details of the process of law. And others will enjoy the relationship between John Clark, the protagonist and public defender for a mixed race boy in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Medley Butterfield, a Mississippi girl down on her luck. Whatever your reason for reading, you will not be disappointed.
The book release party was a success. Minga, our grandmother name for Anne, sold and signed over 40 books. Of course, as she says, “These were my nears and dears. They had to buy it.” My prediction is that word will spread beyond the nears and dears, beyond the bayou, and even beyond the Mississippi River. The best part of this success is that she has nearly completed book 2, Blood in the Lake. So if you get hooked on Anne Simon’s writing, there will be more. In her 80th decade, this lawyer/mother/judge/author is not close to stopping.
I was proud to greet soggy people at my door and say, “Food is to your left. The author is to your right.”
How exciting! You all must be very proud. Now, I’ve got another book to add to my summer reading list. 🙂 I just recently finished Blessen and LOVED it.
Thanks so much, Julie. It is quite amazing when our writing is released into the wild.
Sorry for the ‘wet’, but sounds like a very wonderful evening. Congratulations to your mother-in-law. It’s really a special thing!
Your mother-in-law sounds amazing – I’ll have to check her book out, Margaret!
It is amazing that in all of her “spare time” she was able to write a book. Just reading her list of accomplishments wore me out! Congratulations to her and to you for your support. I will have to check it out.
Wow! So much talent in your family. Thanks for the telling of the author’s book signing. No amount of rain could overshadow the excitement there!
I can’t wait to dive into my copy of Blood in the Cane Field. What an intriguing title!
Congratulations to Judge Simon. Can’t wait to read it!
It sounds like an interesting book. Glad the book party went well.
[…] In our household, if you make it into our local paper, you are famous. I made it into a local free magazine, Acadiana Lifestyle. The writer Anne Minvielle called me about 6 weeks ago asking me about my hero. She was doing a feature on local heroes’ heroes. I didn’t have to think long. My hero is my mother-in-law, Anne Simon. I’ve written about her a few times on this blog. […]