About the Book

Title: Soul’s Cry
Author: Cara Luecht
Genre: Historical Fiction
Release Date: June 15, 2017

Ione has everything she’d wanted with her busy shop filled to the brim with sumptuous fabrics, gossiping debutants, and a neatly increasing profit margin. Not to mention the unexpected attention of a man who doesn’t know her past. And then the letter dropped from the mail slot onto to lush carpet. He was back. And the abuse, the shame, rushes in, reminding her of how unworthy she really is. Miriam also has everything she’d wanted—and with a baby on the way, for the first time in her life, she has everything to lose. When she’d been alone, the future had held promise, but now with her life full, it also holds fear. Unwilling to risk a vision of loss, Miriam stops painting what will be…right before Ione needs it most.

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My Review

Ione has started a new life, or has she? Her past won't seem to leave her alone, and now she goes back into survival mode where she must protect herself from the ghosts of her past. Miriam, thrust into society is crippled by fear because of not wanting to lose her new and fulfilling life. Wow! What a story- rich in history that we tend to ignore as a country, and rich in reality that we like to soften for our ears to hear many times, avoiding the ugliness of it. I found Ione of utmost fascination because as we as a country's history make clear the overarching poverty of African American populations, we basically ignore the reality of African Americans who were prosperous and should be taught in our history books as important figures. We are opened to a door of history that is true and shows the reality of the "Black Elite" which was so uplifting and fascinating to me! (See author post below for reference) Ione's past was presented in a real way helping us to understand the difficulty of women in history who got pulled into this lifestyle because of poverty, lack of knowing true love, etc., and the precarious path they have to take to protect themselves when someone from their past won't let them feel they've overcome it. Ione learns the importance of finding true love, and how to let people help her that care for her which is hard when you have a past that includes someone saying they love you, when in reality they're abusing and manipulating you. The plot was seamless and kept me glued to the page til the end. The history thrilled my mind. The characters and the settings were so richly described, and the growth of Ione to come to trust and reach out to her friends and loved ones for help really touched my heart. There is redemption, there is healing, there is true love to be found. Don't miss out on this one of a kind, eye-opening, redemptive read!

I received a complimentary copy of this book, and all opinions given are my own.

About the Author

Award winning author, Cara Luecht, lives in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin with her husband, David, and their children. In addition to freelance writing and marketing, Cara works as an English Instructor for a local college. Cara graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Currently, Cara is studying for a Masters of Divinity at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Guest post from Cara Luecht

The moment you realize how subtle racism can be. As someone of Northern European ancestry, I approach this topic with caution and with the knowledge that I can never fully understand racism in America from a personal perspective. That being said, part of me knows that unless white America owns up to the problems that still exist, they will never go away, or if they do, they will not go away because of what I have done. I don’t want to be on the right side of history as a spectator. Writing Soul’s Cry was daunting, because the main character in this part of the trilogy is African American. I’ll tackle the challenges with that in another blog. For now, I want to talk about one simple example of ongoing racism. A few months ago, my publisher contacted me looking for inspiration pictures for the cover. The picture I had pinned to my desktop for Ione was from the 1800s, and heaven-only-knows how I would find permission to use it. Besides, it was in black-and-white, and we needed something that would go well with the other covers in the trilogy.

I went to the popular sites that cover designers use to look for modern pictures of women, in Victorian Era clothes, who had the smart, determined expression I’d imagined for Ione. I found a bunch of models–problem is, they were all white. I then typed in “African American Victorian Woman.” One picture. And she was dressed as a burlesque dancer. Nice. I tried “Black woman in 1890,” a bit miffed that I had to use the term “Black” rather than “African American”—nothing. I got desperate, rolled my eyes, and even attempted the archaic “Negro woman in 1890” in hopes of getting something…nothing. I tried other sites. I found the same problem. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised—when you think of a high-society Victorian woman, does an African American face come to mind? This doesn’t match up with the truth, though. In the late Victorian era, there was a thriving, influential, African American community in Chicago as well as many other major cities. While there were indeed crowded ghetto areas, the “Black Elite” prospered in the medical and legal professions. Unfortunately, we rarely hear of these remarkable people who moved beyond the place society had deemed was theirs, who built on the humble foundation of literacy, who pushed innovation forward, who served on boards and cultural societies, and who worked to pull their families out of the devastation of slavery and the Civil War. It is uncomfortable to admit, but the picture that comes to mind when thinking of an African American in the late 1800s has more in common with slaves than with a prosperous, thriving community. And since poor African Americans outnumbered wealthy ones, I suppose one could make the argument that this reflected how a majority of African Americans lived. And that would be true… …but it would also be true for whites. One of my grandfathers was born in an Iowa coal town. Another, into the dustbowl conditions of North Dakota. In fact, if I look back in my own history, almost every one of my ancestors lived in poverty. So why is it that when I think about a Victorian Era woman, the picture that comes to mind looks like someone from the set of Meet Me In St. Louis. And here’s the twist…because the picture of the woman in my mind looks a bit like me (in that we are both white), her poise, the no-nonsense posture and expression…it makes me feel a bit of pride—even though I have no real connection with her. The fact is, I can look at these old pictures and see in her the determination I hope to have. I want to live up to this woman’s expectations. As crazy as it sounds, when I look at these pictures, I feel pride in a heritage I do not own. My family was in poverty, but because of these pictures, I can identify with affluence. Prosperity does not feel like a foreign concept. Now imagine that every picture of a white woman I saw as representative of my past looked haggard, tired, and hopeless. I’ll leave the implications for you to puzzle out.