Beyond the Thistle Patch is a nostalgic visit to the rural Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina and Northeastern Georgia during the 1950s and '60s. It unveils the tender autobiographical story of the author's childhood and his journey through innocence to come to grips with the world into which he is being thrust A great book for young teens, and anyone who lived in that magical era.

Bella Fontaine has dreamed of witnessing the spectacle of a total eclipse of the sun for many years. In July of 2010, she has the opportunity to travel to Easter Island in the Polynesian triangle off the coast of Chile go there and fulfill her dream. While gazing into the heavens, she thinks how her life has been like the darkness of the sun during the eclipse, and her thoughts take her back. As a child she endured an abusive relationship with her mother. Her father, a prosperous doctor in McMinnville, Tennessee, leaves home and is never heard from. When her mother dies suddenly she feels all...