Books & Bakes Preview: My Old (Western) Kentucky Home
My rural home rarely appears in novels and stories, so I'm eager to dive into T. J. Martinson's thriller, Blood River Witch
This month I’m previewing some of the books I’ll be reading for the Books & Bakes read-a-thon to benefit Cake4Kids. Grab yourself a copy so you can read along and join in the discussion this summer.
I left home for a Virginia college at 17 and never looked back. Since those distant days, I’ve only lived in Virginia and Washington, D.C., where I’ve spent decades building my own life and family.
But if you ask me where I’m from, I’m going to say Kentucky.
It’s an odd thing, holding on to a home state identity when I left before I became a legal adult. I technically can’t even say that I was “born and raised” in Kentucky — thanks to the draft and the Vietnam war, I was actually born on Camp Pendleton Marine Base outside of San Diego. But my earliest memory is in Kentucky as a toddler: standing in the kitchen of our yellow-brick house while my mom held my still-infant little sister.
And I still have all the sense memories of home. Playing in the creek behind the house. Walking through the fields to Granny and Grandpa’s. “Helping” on my uncle’s farm. Playing Little League on the Fredonia ball field. Staring up at a night sky free of light pollution and dreaming of bigger things.
No matter how long I’m away, Western Kentucky will always be a part of me. I’m specifying the part of the state because Western Kentucky is a different beast than the other, more famous parts: Eastern Kentucky, with its coal-fired Appalachian history, and Bluegrass Kentucky in the center, with its white-fenced bluegrass pastures and expensive horses. Eastern and Bluegrass have their holds on American culture, for better and worse — Loretta Lynn singing from the mountains, coal-miner strikes, the halls of state government, and the Kentucky Derby showing that even country can get fancy.
Western Kentucky, though, not so much. Which is a shame, because there’s a lot there to work with. The most prominent author I know to have done so is Bobbie Ann Mason, whose 1985 novel In Country made a sizable debut and was adapted into a film by Norman Jewison (starring Bruce Willis) that tackled the post-Vietnam war years and PTSD.
That’s all a very long way of saying I don’t see much of my Kentucky home and experience reflected in the books I read. Which is why I’m happy I’ll change that a bit during Books & Bakes with T. J. Martinson’s Blood River Witch, a just-published murder-mystery/thriller that delves into the rural Kentucky area that shaped me as a kid. From the jacket:
“Deputy Sheriff Alicia Moore is thrust into the center of a chilling murder investigation when she discovers a victim identifiable only by his hauntingly familiar tattoo —her name inked on the knuckles of her ex-fiancé, Jake. … Caught between her estranged relationship with her father, the community’s watchful eyes on a female deputy, and her own harrowing ties to the case, Alicia must navigate a maze of potential occultists, convicts, corrupt officials, and clergy to prevent a gruesome history from repeating itself once again.”
I came across Blood River Witch via TikTok, of all places, when the algorithm served me Martinson’s series on literary feuds, Literary Diss Tracks. He’s an assistant professor of literature at Murray State University, down the road and across the Land Between the Lakes from my hometown and where my mom got a degree while I was in middle school. When I heard Martinson — who’s from Illinois — talk about his desire to write about the Western Kentucky area he’s adopted, how could I not sign up?
During my background research for this column I also found that in 2019 Martinson was “pre-emptively fired” from his then-new position teaching at Olivet Nazarene University because his novel, The Reign of the Kingfisher, had a lesbian character and someone complained to the administration. “[Inclusion] is, in my opinion, an ethical imperative that all writers must acknowledge and embrace. I personally wish for everyone to feel welcomed into my stories, especially those who are consistently disenfranchised and whose voices are often erased,” Martinson said at the time. Guess now I’ll be reading two books by him.
So, Blood River Witch is officially part of my Books & Bakes read-a-thon benefiting Cake4Kids. Remember, for every book I read, supporters will pledge $1, $5, or $10 to help bring more smiles to at-risk and underserved children on their birthdays. If you make a pledge, you’ll also get a free six-month, paid-tier subscription to The Back Half, so you can join in the chat about all the books I’ll be reading between July 1 and Labor Day.
Reading is awesome on its own but it’s even better when you have someone to share it with. You can grab your copy of Blood River Witch via Amazon, or you can support your local independent bookstore in person or by ordering at Bookshop.org.
To find out more about Books & Bakes and to make your pledge, visit seanbuggrealtor.com/books-and-bakes. You can follow T. J. Martinson on TikTok, @tjmartinsonwritesbooks.
