Saga
The Blood of My Mother
“Wow…just WOW! You have created an astounding piece of literature.
I thought I would have to read it in stages but once I started it
I just couldn’t quit. Well done!!!”
– Patricia Wood, Author of Lottery
✱✱✱
After the deaths of her white father and mixed-race mother, young Eliza is left with neither home nor family in the newly forming frontier of Texas.
Enslaved by men who treat her body as their property, she eventually escapes, marries, becomes a mother, and realizes her dream of having a small farm. But she must fight and kill to keep it—even if it does mean welcoming others who have been shunned or forgotten by society. Living and laboring together, will these outcasts find the strength and community they need to survive and flourish?
Acclaimed for her “wonderful” debut novel (Publishers Weekly), Roccie Hill, inspired by the story of her great-great grandmother, now presents an unforgettable literary saga of a woman and a place, growing and enduring under multiple flags and through the sorrows and turbulence of history
Jacquelyn Mitchard, NYT Bestselling author & Oprah Book Club Inaugural Choice The Deep End of the Ocean:
“Robbed by fate and evil-doers of everything except her ferocious spirit, Eliza fights for her own space in the pitiless frontier that will become the state of Texas. Combining lyrical prose and non-stop action, Roccie Hill conjures an unforgettable character, based loosely on her own great-great grandmother, who somehow triumphs over nearly unthinkable privations. Hill’s Eliza springs to life as a true American original. I could not stop reading.”
Baron Birtcher, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Reckoning:
“…Roccie Hill has crafted a heartbreaking and beautiful, bold and courageous coming-of-age tale set in a meticulously-researched 19th century Texas. Hill’s lyrical prose is the heartbeat that drives a fascinating narrative rich with imagery of a rough land suffering the birth pangs of a territory on the precipice of statehood, and all the lawlessness, wickedness, bravery and grace that it entails. The resonance of antebellum language, customs and mores of the times suffuses the poignant and compelling story of protagonist Eliza Green, whose pluck and grit are revealed through the voice of an author that is nothing short of transcendent. Exciting, often terrifying, and ultimately hopeful, THE BLOOD OF MY MOTHER is a relentlessly entertaining and unique novel.”
Carla Love Maitland, Shelby Tennessee County Genealogist, Historian at Chief Piomingo Chapter, NSDAR, President Tennessee Genealogical Society:
“…one of those exceptional books you don’t want to put down. Set in the early to mid-1800s, its scope follows the life of a young half-white, half-Melungeon girl, who grows to womanhood, always carrying the weight of her mother’s bloodline. Her struggles to find her place in the new western lands of a young country will leave you wanting more.
Patricia Wood author of LOTTERY. Shortlisted in 2008 for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction:
“Wow…just WOW! You have created an astounding piece of literature. I thought I would have to read it in stages but once I started it I just couldn’t quit. Well done!!! Lonesome Dove meets Where the Crawdads Sing. I simply could not put this novel down. Vividly written, The Blood of My Mother is a gripping saga about a perilous time in our nation’s history and a woman who survived it against all odds. It is a novel about how love and hope transcend man’s inhumanity to man. I was pulled deeply into then’s inhumanity to man. I was pulled deeply into the story and was held there until the very last page.”
Roccie's Books
