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This collection is for the lionhearted lovers of great stories. They don't flinch or pull punches.They are mysterious and magnificent. They are unforgettable.
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Praise for Sugar Baby and Other Stories
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"This is storytelling of the highest order, plucking up the reader and transporting us to a world of mystery, spirituality, violence, love, and everything in between. Sugar Baby is like River Jordan herself: thrilling, tender, tough, and shot through with light."
Silas House, author of Southernmost
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"River Jordan writes with the lyricism and grace of a gospel hymn, and the tales that weave through
Sugar Baby ring like the chorus of a choir, rising and falling and then rising again,
like all good sinners do."
Michael Farris Smith, author of Nick and Blackwood
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"River Jordan writes to the bone, over and over. Take this book to bed, and expect to stay up late."
Clyde Edgerton, author, The Night Train
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"River Jordan writes music onto the page. Her stories echo about the hills of the mind like downhome ballads: rich with detail, raw with emotion, and capable of delivering light through dusk."
John Larison, author, Whiskey When We're Dry
"Southern Gothic indeed. SPLENDID, Beautiful, haunting, and ultimately a family story that operates on tribal loyalty, devotion, acceptance - it's ALL there. Unique, suspenseful with an air of mystery."
Claire Fullerton, author, Little Tea
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"River Jordan is a holy truth-teller who can make even the bad things in life seem as sweet as sugar. The stories in Sugar Baby and Other Stories are as real as life itself, but the language River uses to coat the pain is something from another world. Writer, storyteller, heart healer.
River Jordan is simply the best."
Wiley Cash, author, The Last Ballad
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“River Jordan is the torchbearer for Southern Gothic literature. Her sublime writing conjures up vivid characters of the rural South, their hardscrabble landscape and the determination to persevere. Sugar Baby is a beautiful collection of short stories that will linger in the imagination long after the last page has been turned.”
Michael Morris, author, Man in the Blue Moon
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Truth Be Told (excerpt)
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The only mercy in it that I can grant to God is that it was quick. It is the only grace that keeps me on speaking terms with the Almighty. But I’ve told him on more than one solid occasion – Wrong choice you made there. You took the good and left the lying. I was no good, prone to trouble. I would be due a killing for what would come later. For the choices I would make. But here I stand to this day. On solid earth. After so much time and years gone by. Truth could have walked on water.
In 1953 my twin sister, Truth was electrocuted while standing next to the clothesline. I remember a sudden bright flash, and her eyes looking at me as she was falling. I rushed to her and took her in my arms knowing the spirit of Truth was already gone. I brushed her hair back from her face, closed her eyes, and kissed her cheek goodbye.
Her skin tasted like gun powder.
Me and Truth rode into this world together, head to foot, sinner and saint. Me being first- all fire and fury. Her second – silent and kind to the heart.
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