My Story BEFORE The Story~ Dixie Lynn ~ in ~ ON SUGAR Hill ~ by ~ Ane Mulligan

Thank you, Miss Joy, for having me on your blog. My name is ... well my stage name is Dixie Lynn. I’ve worked hard and finally made the best circuit in vaudeville. I’m a ventriloquist and voice thrower. Voice throwers are rare. I’m even rarer, being a woman. And I’m one of the best.

My childhood was lonely. My father, the senator, never liked me. I wasn’t beautiful like Mama. I was plain. He had no time for me and made sure Mama’s time was tied up in Atlanta’s high society. I later learned about their arranged marriage, which benefitted him.

Nobody knows for sure where my strange “talent” came from, but by the time I was four years old, I could make my dolls talk. By six, I could throw my voice across the room. That’s how I entertained myself and the servants. But the senator beat me because it embarrassed him.

I learned to stay far away from him. Mama did her best to protect me. She and Pearl, our cook, often hid my dolls and me, for that matter. What helped me the most was my friends. When I started school, I met Martha Anne, Glenice Jo, Trudie and Millie. Our mamas were friends, and they were delighted when we became best friends too. When the senator’s temper raged against me, Mama would make a telephone call and Millie’s or Martha Anne’s mama would come pick me up for an overnight.

The senator stayed away from home as often as he could. There were rumors about women, but Mama never mentioned them. I think her friends helped her through any embarrassment. Watching their marriage, I learned that men aren’t trustworthy. They only cared about themselves.

Mama told me stories about the plain garden faerie named Sugar Pie who lived in our yard. She told me, “When the Michaelmas Daisies bloomed, the Sugar Pie became beautiful, just as you will. You aren’t plain, Cora. You simply haven’t bloomed yet.” After she told me that story, she began to call me Sugar-pie, to reinforce her words.

Unfortunately, the senator’s harsh criticism soon obliterated Mama’s.

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Ane is offering winner's choice of signed Paperback or Ebook in 

drawing Wednesday, June 9, 2021

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My Story Title:   ON SUGAR Hill

My Story Genre:  Historical Romance

My Story Released:      June 1, 2021
                                NEWLY RELEASED

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The Author of My Story:   Ane Mulligan

     

Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown. But when Ane saw PETER PAN on stage, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college. One day, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged. She lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler.

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  Get Connected:

• Website
• Amazon Author page
• Facebook
• BookBub
• Goodreads
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• The Write Conversation

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

• AMAZON: https://smile.amazon.com/Sugar-Hill-Georgia-Magnolias-Book/dp/1645262995/
• LPC  BOOKS:  https://shoplpc.com/on-sugar-hill/

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My Story BEFORE The Story ~ Maggie Parker ~ In High Cotton ~ by Ane Mulligan

I'm Maggie Parker ~

My good friend Sadie always says Southern women may look as delicate as flowers, but there’s iron in our veins. And we need it. While the rest of the world has been roaring through the 1920s, times are hardscrabble here in rural South Georgia. You see, I’m a widow. I guess I should tell you I’m Maggie Parker, and I’m barely surviving while raising my little boy, Barry, alone. Now, the banks are failing, and my father-in-law threatens to take my boy and sell off our livelihood—the grocery store my late husband left me.

I haven’t always lived here in Rivers End. My sister, Duchess, and I were born on a farm in South Georgia, but we are as different as can be. Duchess was the princess Mama and Meemaw wanted. She drank in their stories of the old family plantation and the parties, before the war of Northern Aggression. Our great-grandparents owned a flourishing cotton plantation before that terrible time. But after the Yankees came through, they turned the family out and carpetbaggers took over. Great-granddaddy was forced to become a sharecropper.

The work and humility unhinged our great-grandmother and grandmother, who was nine years old at the time—old enough to remember life before. She raised our mama on stories of those times. When Mama married Daddy, Meemaw moved in with them. And then she raised Duchess on those stories. She was sure they times would return and they’d get their plantation back. Like I said, her mind was unhinged. But she and Mama told Duchess she was a Southern princess. I never paid heed to the stories. I was more practical than Sister. I preferred to help Daddy with the farm animals. I even helped with the crops some.

When my sister was sixteen, a train wrecked near our farm. The passengers needed housing, and a nice man named Mr. Alden stayed with us. He was a rich businessman from Atlanta. Wouldn’t you know, he fell in love with our Duchess. He courted her and married her, then took her off to Atlanta. Their marriage eased life for us with the money they sent.

A few years later, I met Jimmy Parker at a farmers’ market. He was buying for his grocery store. I was smitten from the first time I saw him. When we married, he brought me to Rivers End, where he and his daddy owned Parker’s Grocery. When his daddy decided to retire, he turned full ownership over to my Jimmy. I was so proud of him. But my Jimmy died almost eight years ago, not knowing I was pregnant with our first child. My son, Barry, is what keeps me going.

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To read the first chapter free, go to https://anemulligan.com/georgia-magnolias-series and scroll to the DOWNLOADS.



My Title: In High Cotton

My Genre: Southern Women's Fiction

My Release Date: August 3, 2020

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The Author of My Story:   Ane Mulligan

Ane Mulligan has been a voracious reader ever since her mom instilled within her a love of reading at age three, escaping into worlds otherwise unknown.

But when Ane saw PETER PAN on stage, she was struck with a fever from which she never recovered—stage fever. She submerged herself in drama through high school and college.

One day, her two loves collided, and a bestselling, award-winning novelist emerged.

She lives in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler.

~ ~ ~ ~

Get Connected:

Find Ane on her

• website,
• Amazon Author page
• Facebook,
• Twitter,
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• The Write Conversation

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In High Cotton can be purchased in print or as an eBook.

• For the print book: https://amzn.to/2WOLShX or https://shoplpc.com/in-high-cotton/
• For the e-book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087V636BH

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The author will be honored to gift a winner a signed copy or ebook copy of
IN HIGH COTTON

ONLY COMMENTS WITH EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE ELIGIBLE TO WIN

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~ July 29, 2020

My Story BEFORE The Story ~ Morgan James ~ A Magnolia Blooms in Winter

Hello! Or as we say in the South, Hey, y’all! Although as an actor—nobody says actress anymore— on Broadway, I’ve been working hard to eliminate my Southern accent. I’m Morgan James and I’ve been in New York for several years, striving for my big break and a starring role on Broadway.

Last year, I played the second lead in a Broadway show and got good reviews. Then, I recently auditioned for the lead in Bloom!, a new off-Broadway production. I’m was born for that part. I keep asking God, since He gave me my talent, to please give me favor with the director. I know it’s Off Broadway, but it’s the lead and one step closer to being a Broadway star. My old high school sweetheart, Andy Wayfield, always told me to reach for the stars.

Then my mother calls me. Y’all are going to love my mother. She is so funny. She talks all around a subject before she gets to the point. Drives me to distraction, but all my friends love her. Well, it seems she somehow squashed the music minister at church, and they need my help to put on the Christmas musical. I guess since I wrote it, they think I’m the best one to help out.

Do I need to tell you who that music minister is? You guessed it...my old flame, Andy. Just saying his name still makes my heart flip over. But our lives are so far apart, what with him back home in Sugar Hill, Georgia and me in New York City. But, since it was my mama who broke his ankle, I can’t say no.

Then, I arrive home and see Andy. Oh my!

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My Story Title:  A Magnolia Blooms in Winter
A Southern Season:
 Four Stories From A Front Porch Swing

My Story Genre: Romance

My Story Released:   September 2018

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The Author of My Story:    Ane Mulligan


While a large, floppy straw hat is her favorite, Amazon bestselling author Ane Mulligan has worn many different ones: hairdresser, legislative affairs director (that's a fancy name for a lobbyist), drama director, playwright, and bestselling novelist. She firmly believes coffee and chocolate are two of the four major food groups. Ane resides in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler who thinks he’s a teddy bear.

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Get Connected:

• Website
• Amazon Author page
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• The Write Conversation.

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

• Amazon

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The author will be honored to gift a winner a signed copy of
A SOUTHERN SEASON.

Be sure to leave a comment with an email address where you can be reached should you win.

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~ October 23, 2019.

Our Story BEFORE the Story ~ Claire Bennett & Patsy Kowalski ~ Chapel Hill Revival

Hey, there! I’m Claire Bennett, and this is my best friend since kindergarten Patsy Kowalski.

“Hello.”

Patsy isn’t as outspoken as I am. In fact, when we were in Kindergarten, I always spoke for her. She’d whisper to me, and I’d tell the teacher whatever she wanted. If the teacher called on her, she’d cry. They finally tried to separate us into different classes. Ha! They didn’t count on her mama storming into the school to stop that nonsense.

“We’re the owners of The Painted Loon, our art gallery. I paint and Claire’s a potter.”

Patsy, do you remember the morning my Joel left without kissing me goodbye? He’s kissed me every morning before he leaves since we got married, but somewhere in twenty-seven years of marriage, I’d become a LazyBoy recliner. A steady, comfortable piece of furniture. How utterly humdrum.

“At least he wasn’t like Nathan. He was doing sixteen of the Twenty-One Signs of a Cheating Husband.”

True, but nobody likes to be taken for granted. So, we embarked on Operation Marriage Revival. At the same time, the new widow on the hill, Lydia, hesitantly mentioned how Chapel Springs had grown a little shabby and could use reviving.

“And she was right. Since Claire and I were already in ‘revival’ mode, she pulled everyone together and we began a town-wide campaign to freshen up Chapel Springs. Of course, we got a lot of flak from the mayor and his cronies. They’d prefer to leave us stuck in the 1950s and not enter the Twenty-first Century.”

That’s the truth. Then, in the midst of all of it, my son Charlie got engaged to Sandi, and she wanted to have the reception at our house. Her mama erroneously thought I was the cook in our family. I had to learn how fast, so I could cook the dinner she coerced me into. Sandi’s mother was a piece of work. But you’ll have to read the book to learn how I managed it. And the fire was not my fault!

“Our story has been out for 5 years now, and it has remained in the top 100 books in its category on Amazon that entire time. We’re pretty excited about that. Should we tell them what happened with Operation Marriage Revival?”

No way. They need to buy the book to find that out. They can go to Amazon and find it there.

“Or they can leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win it.” (See below)

They can? Well, isn’t that nice!

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Our Story Title:   Chapel Hill Revival 1st Edition

Our Story Genre:  Southern Women's Fiction ~ Ane's brand - Southern Fried Fiction

Our Story Releases:    HAPPY ANNIVERSARY
            CHAPEL HILL REVIVAL 1st Edition !!!! ~ Sept. 2014

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The Author of Our Story: Ane Mulligan

Ane Mulligan writes Southern-fried fiction served with a tall, sweet tea. She's an award-winning bestselling novelist, a multi-published playwright and contributor to the award-winning blog, The Write Conversation

She resides in Sugar Hill, GA, with her artist husband and a rascally Rottweiler who thinks he’s a teddy bear.

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  Get Connected:

• Website:  anemulligan.com/
• Blog: The Write Conversation
• Facebook: Facebook.com/anemulligansouthernfriedfiction
• Amazon Author page
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• Instagram

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WHERE can the book be purchased?

• Amazon

~ ~ ~ ~

The author will be honored to gift a winner a signed copy of
Chapel Hill Revival .

Be sure to leave a comment with an email address where you can be reached should you win.

DRAWING TO BE HELD WEDNESDAY EVENING ~ September 18, 2019.