December 2020 Book of the Month
“Walk in Bethel”
Author – Rose Mary Stiffin, PhD
Reviewed by Anita Finley
Walk in Bethel by Rose Mary Stiffin, PhD
We are very privileged to be able to share the current books that Dr. Stiffin has written. We chose the first one, Walk in Bethel, to be on our cover and to make it the December “Book of the Month” and her others, “Publisher’s Choices.”
As I told Dr. Stiffin, her novel could be a TV show as it moves so fast, has many poignant situations and her characters are so well developed that they seem very real.
Bethel is in Mississippi and much of the dialogue has the characters speaking southern and the flow continues throughout the beginning chapters.
This 441-page novel is divided up into three books, with many chapters in each book. These books are used as a separation of what has happened to the various characters as they aged and found themselves in new circumstances.
The back cover of Walk in Bethel summarizes quite succinctly the essence of what the reader is about to enjoy. “A return of the Southern Gothic tradition and a testimony in her Southern roots, author Rose Mary Stiffin’s debut novel Walk in Bethel is an earthy spellbinding drama set in the sweltering Mississippi Delta.” With skeletons in the closet and a myriad of back porch speculations, Stiffin writes in the vernacular of a multi-family epic that describes the darkest passages of the human ear, as well as the well-lit corridors of freedom, forgiveness and love of family.
Nashville is Reverend Carl Thompson’s wife; she secretly considers prayers to be no more than wishes yet believes that God walks the Earth. Though she’s witnessed brutality, she’s also seen equality and human kindness. Returning from her Christian duty to call upon the infirm—in this case Belle Washington, a child-bride and runaway who has lost another child, Nashville is dragged into a cotton field by two depraved white youths, the Ferguson brothers and would have been brutally raped if it weren’t for Mike Poe fending off her attackers.
Their desperate trek home is fraught with terror as they try to avoid the revenge-seeking brothers. The chaos leads to a desperate sin without measure and consequences that will follow them to their graves. Years later, when Nashville’s daughter, Allene, marries Robert Sutton, a man with a murderous past, she’ll have no idea what truth will haunt him and what fate will provide.
This unforgettable saga links three families, several generations, and is ultimately a story of survival, “for what we can forgive is what we must never forget.” This is a perfect reason to turn off the TV and sit down with a good book. It will provide you with all the chatter and make you relish your own life.
Rose Mary Stiffin, PhD
South Florida’s Celebrity Author Shares Her Novels
Rose Mary Stiffin, Ph.D. was raised and educated in Indianola, Mississippi, the hometown of the blues legend, BB King. She received her Bachelor of Art
degree in Chemistry from Mississippi Valley State University (1974), her Master of Science degree in Organic Chemistry from Mississippi State University (1981), and her Ph.D. (Biochemistry) from the University of Tennessee in Memphis (1995). She did her post-doctoral work at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. She is the Chair of the Division of Health and Natural Sciences at Florida Memorial University, a small HBCU located in Miami Gardens, FL.
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