Maryann Austin

Well, here it is!  The long-awaited second novel!  I breathe a sigh of relief and hope that you enjoy this story.  It is the tale of Della Cotton.  She lives in Boone, North Carolina when war erupts in our young country.  Zebediah, her older brother, has designs on joining the Confederate Army.  The bossy girl tries to dissuade him, sure that he will die.   Meantime, a boy from town has designs on Della.  Zebediah watches his sister and her lover in the woods. He doesn't like what he sees, and he ends up dead on the forest floor.  Devastated, Della makes a snap decision and disappears.  Her army-bound ex-lover is long gone, and she is on his trail. The story is a chronicle of Della's journey through the Shenandoah Valley in 1863.  In her quest for revenge, she discovers more injustices.  She experiences the taste of killing.  Yet, there is redemption and, finally, love in an unlikely place. Enjoy when you read it! ...

       From a wooded area north of town, a man watched as Della dragged a body through the field.  She had pictured herself throwing him over her shoulder, but reality would not allow it.  Though thin, indeed bony with the starvation of the war, he was too heavy for her.  For she, too, was malnourished and weaker than she had been when she first left Boone.  But she was sure, in healthier times, she could have easily carried him. The sound of gunfire can travel long distances.  But it grew fainter and fainter still while Della took John’s broken body southward through the valley.  She fought discouragement.  But the exhaustion was harder to overcome.  Seeking to lighten her load, she laid down her pack and her rifle.  Surely there would be some soldier who would put it to good use.  And she looked forward to the moment when she could discard every last thing that had made her a soldier. When she was far enough f...

Some people have turned expectations into a dirty word.  I remember my first husband telling me that he did not want to get me a birthday gift because I expected it.   Absurd  I thought.  But I tried the concept anyway.  And I still got nothing.  To avoid the pain of never receiving, I learned to abandon my expectations all together.  Before I knew it, I came to expect nothing.  And my life still sucked.  After a few years of existing this way, I had a revelation.  Things had become so bad.  There was a lot of praying going on.  God, give me a man I can follow.  God, give me a man who sees me as a blessing, and not a curse.   I learned to come boldly and expectantly for my needs and desires.  And one day, it happened.  Just like that.  My request was fulfilled.  Would it never have happened had I not expected it?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that it did not happen until ...

It dawned on me today that Choking Butterflies is about more than moral decay.  There is another theme, one that I mention in passing in the book.  Joy is dismissed by her older siblings who place little value on family, and in fact recoil from it.  Joy is saddened by this fact, but eventually lets go and moves on to create a close and loving marriage.  Her hopes for her dream family are dashed again when her child turns out to be like her siblings.  There are, after all, very important things to tend to in life.  And Jane cares little about her mother or any other blood relative. My own sadness on the subject leaks out in the pages.  You just can’t want or need too much from people these days.  Not even family.  To most, family means no more than sharing a blood line, like some wild animals who, as adults, don‘t recognize the one they suckled next to.  There is no need to spend time, to give aide, to get to know one’s children. ...

       If you are an atheist, what I have to say will make no sense to you.  Stop reading here.  But if you are someone who professes to be a Christ follower and you support same sex marriage, I hope that you read on.  And I hope that you consider the following point. Reasonable people would agree that abuse and unfaithfulness in marriage are unacceptable.  But for a time I lived with these things.  I remember stating,  “These are not my rules.”  But he viewed me as a killjoy who sought to steal his freedom, and the relationship was destroyed.  I am reminded of those times as I watch the news of late.   Should the Federal ban on gay marriage be lifted?  Tweets and Facebook posts abound.  “Screw the haters!”  “Equal rights for everyone!”  “Love is love!”  Each side views the other as angry.   Few would debate that rules are designed to protect.  From the time we are tiny children...

The Giving Tree I hadn’t even reached my tenth birthday when I first read The Giving Tree.  One of the priests talked about it in a homily at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Holbrook, NY and I thought it was something I would like to read.  It was magical for me when I was a child.  The simple words.  The simple pictures.  The simple story of unconditional love.  So easy to grasp as a babe.  The idea of turning the other cheek and remaining in a spirit of love no matter what. And I still have the beat up copy that I bought way back when with babysitting money.  Thirty some odd years later, the little book is a cherished volume in the collection of my six year old son.  But for a number of years, it rested in the bottom of a cardboard box.  And it narrowly escaped a trip to the Salvation Army or the dump a number of times--I think by the grace of God Himself. In case there are a couple of people in the world who have not read...

I heard on the news today that the average life expectancy for women living in rural areas has dropped.  This was not good news to me as I am a woman living in a rural area.  The report cited lack of education and obesity as determining factors.     The study did not specify what is meant by lack of education.  But there are two possible ways to interpret this idea.  Perhaps the suggestion is that the women who are dying younger are not college graduates and, therefore, have lower incomes and cannot afford good medical care--a truth that I have experienced first hand.  Another way to interpret the “lack of education” might be a lack of knowledge about health and nutrition. I don’t challenge the accuracy of the report, but I am offended (maybe appalled is a better word) by the causes.  So it is coldly reported that fat and stupid middle-aged women, like myself, are kicking the bucket earlier--and it is because we are fat and stupid and poor....