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The Tramp
When John was seven, he found Candy dancing in the neighboring yard wearing a yellow polka-dot bikini and red rain galoshes, splashing and dancing and singing at the top of her lungs. She saved his throat from getting ripped out by her grandma’s guard dog. Good thing she did, too. It was John who raised the alarm that day, when the man who smiled with his mouth but not his eyes drove off with Candy in a cloud of dust. The police stopped whatever might have happened next in a seedy motel—a place Candy doesn’t dare remember. John rescued her, creating a bond between two friends strong enough to awaken…something.
That something has haunted the southern mountain town of Shirley since a time before stories were written, in a cycle that has spun for centuries.
Years later, John and Candy begin to suspect something more sinister lurking amidst the days of football glory and the nights of clandestine rendezvous. John discovers disturbing symbols from the ancient tribes indigenous to the area in his history textbook, in a local cave system, and in his very dreams. Candy uncovers a family history that is more colorful than she knew. If shades of black are colorful.
If only the two friends could foresee the danger looming before them. For another something, one much more dangerous than the first, is waking up to continue the cycle.
And this something is bent on revenge…again.
Murder forces everyone out of sunny valley torpor, and Candy realizes that more than acquaintance connects her with the killer. When a corpse is found, gutted as if for ritual, she knows that whatever evil has overtaken her hometown is moving forward. She will have to exorcise the haunting herself—though she has no idea how—and she will need John’s predestined help to do it. Candy will have to face the memories of that seedy motel room first. At least she finally understands the power she never knew she had—a link to her departed mother and a line of healers shrouded in pre-history.
That something has haunted the southern mountain town of Shirley since a time before stories were written, in a cycle that has spun for centuries.
Years later, John and Candy begin to suspect something more sinister lurking amidst the days of football glory and the nights of clandestine rendezvous. John discovers disturbing symbols from the ancient tribes indigenous to the area in his history textbook, in a local cave system, and in his very dreams. Candy uncovers a family history that is more colorful than she knew. If shades of black are colorful.
If only the two friends could foresee the danger looming before them. For another something, one much more dangerous than the first, is waking up to continue the cycle.
And this something is bent on revenge…again.
Murder forces everyone out of sunny valley torpor, and Candy realizes that more than acquaintance connects her with the killer. When a corpse is found, gutted as if for ritual, she knows that whatever evil has overtaken her hometown is moving forward. She will have to exorcise the haunting herself—though she has no idea how—and she will need John’s predestined help to do it. Candy will have to face the memories of that seedy motel room first. At least she finally understands the power she never knew she had—a link to her departed mother and a line of healers shrouded in pre-history.
358 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 10, 2015
About the author
Sarah Wathen
7 books69 followersAn artist turned author, Sarah Wathen is a storyteller by trade and a painter at heart. She was trained in Classical Painting at the University of Central Florida, then completed graduate studies in Fine Art at Parson’s School of Design in New York City. Her first step into the world of independent publishing was as an illustrator, and Sarah quickly realized she wanted to write her own books rather than illustrate other’s. That reinvention came as no surprise to family and friends, who remember her as a child always ready to turn a tale. Hours spent under the backyard stairs with her sister—dreaming up imaginary friends with outlandish names like Afisha and Pekins, and designing social networks called the Plant Club and the Tutu Group—were recorded and illustrated, too. Copies still exist under lock and key! Sarah currently resides in Florida and runs the indie label, LayerCake Productions.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 16, 2015
There are many different genres that came to mind when I read the synopsis for The Tramp; mystery, suspense and paranormal. And The Tramp covers all of these, but above all else it is the coming of age story of John and Candy. Fate has brought these two old friends back together after years of slowly drifting apart.
Sarah Wathen has painted a fantastic picture of a most peculiar small town in the South. She has eloquently depicted the lives and relationships of the people who call Shirley County home. She has brought to life the art, music and culture of these wonderful and horrible people.
I’ll be honest, I had some issues with the book, but was completely satisfied by the end. I would compare The Tramp to a Bob Ross painting. For the longest time I was reading about these fantastic characters and learning about the history of Shirley County, but I was looking for the story, the action, I needed something to happen. Then suddenly, just like with a Bob Ross painting, one particular stroke/incident and it all came together with a BANG! After that I could not read fast enough to see where the story would go.
The Tramp is a great story. I do have to tell you to be patient, because when the action kicks into gear you will be glad that you did. From my perspective, Shirley County still has many hidden secrets to discover.
Sarah Wathen has painted a fantastic picture of a most peculiar small town in the South. She has eloquently depicted the lives and relationships of the people who call Shirley County home. She has brought to life the art, music and culture of these wonderful and horrible people.
I’ll be honest, I had some issues with the book, but was completely satisfied by the end. I would compare The Tramp to a Bob Ross painting. For the longest time I was reading about these fantastic characters and learning about the history of Shirley County, but I was looking for the story, the action, I needed something to happen. Then suddenly, just like with a Bob Ross painting, one particular stroke/incident and it all came together with a BANG! After that I could not read fast enough to see where the story would go.
The Tramp is a great story. I do have to tell you to be patient, because when the action kicks into gear you will be glad that you did. From my perspective, Shirley County still has many hidden secrets to discover.
February 13, 2016
Whew - these people are crazy. I had already read the spin off to this book, Catchpenny, so I knew a bit about the town of Shirley already, but I had no idea it was this off. The town is full of mystery. Rival families and legends ground in history keep things interesting. It's a small mountain town where outsiders are unwelcome and strange occurrences are shrugged off.
The story centers around Candy, a spunky teenage girl, but we see the story from many different sides. This is the first in the series so I didn't actually get any of the answers I had been waiting for the entire book, but that'll just make me grab the second as soon as it comes out. Something strange is happening and no one can seem to talk about it. People are dead or hurt and we're far from figuring out why.
This book was a solid four stars for me up until about the halfway point. It started out kind of slow, but if you stick with it, you're soon thrown head first into the craziness that is Shirley. Once I hit half way, I couldn't put it down. Candy and John are both such compelling characters in their own ways. It's definitely a series I'm going to stick with.
The story centers around Candy, a spunky teenage girl, but we see the story from many different sides. This is the first in the series so I didn't actually get any of the answers I had been waiting for the entire book, but that'll just make me grab the second as soon as it comes out. Something strange is happening and no one can seem to talk about it. People are dead or hurt and we're far from figuring out why.
This book was a solid four stars for me up until about the halfway point. It started out kind of slow, but if you stick with it, you're soon thrown head first into the craziness that is Shirley. Once I hit half way, I couldn't put it down. Candy and John are both such compelling characters in their own ways. It's definitely a series I'm going to stick with.
April 21, 2015
A secluded little town tucked into the mountains of Shirley County seems just like any other little town. Cold to outsiders, colder to the ones that live there, and everyone knows everyone and their business. But there are still secrets; some childish and some dark. Candy knows it all too well, both from events in her childhood, and as she tries to make it through high school while dating social outcast, Sam. The town is steeped in whispers about families, the Native American history of the land, and even rumored supernatural happenings.
When John, Candy’s childhood friend, moves to the small town from the big city, things start to go farther sideways than just the little country problems. John’s grandfather had been having nightmares before he showed up, and now John is having them. John’s investigative side starts to get him in hot water, first with trying to dig up history of the native lands through his grandmother, then with Candy and Sam when he finds out some of Sam’s secrets. Like a pebble into a pond, the fragile peace is disrupted, but it’s only the beginning. John and Candy find that there are bigger things sending ripples through Shirley County.
My thoughts:
The structure was immaculate. It was well polished and flowed nicely. Sarah is a wordsmith through and through. She doesn’t drop you into a world with little info to go on and head straight for adventure. Instead she builds the world around you little by little. She wants you to feel what it is to be a part of this small community. It was clear that she went to great lengths to make her world and characters as real as possible. The feeling I got from The Tramp is like she was writing a movie, following many different characters throughout the story, but focusing on giving Candy and John difficult life changing event to deal with as they grow up.
Following so many characters made for an interesting view of the events happening in Shirley. You get to see things through many eyes and it feels like you have the inside scoop on everyone. It did however leave me waiting for the pace to pick up. I’m used to stories that may have a longer beginning arc but pick up significantly by breaking into the meaty portions of the action, adventure, and/or suspense. But Sarah shot for the long arc and I ended up putting myself in suspense waiting for something bigger to happen. Unfortunately the 'supernatural mystery' part took a back seat to literary fiction.
I always read a description before opening the cover to dive into the contents. The book’s description was the biggest misdirection to my expectations. It’s long and gives out a significant amount of information that should have been left for the interior and reads like this is going to be a suspenseful story filled with the supernatural. I was disappointed when I reached the end of the book and there had been little suspense and even less supernatural.
My rating:
Were this just a piece of literary fiction following this little town and absent of any supernatural ideas, this book would be easier to rate. It would be undoubtedly 5 stars. The biggest hurdle is that it’s promoted as supernatural and it’s barely a few moments in the story that actually fall into that. I liked the story, but I felt let down that the supernatural part wasn’t bigger than it was. I have to give this a 3 for “I like it".
When John, Candy’s childhood friend, moves to the small town from the big city, things start to go farther sideways than just the little country problems. John’s grandfather had been having nightmares before he showed up, and now John is having them. John’s investigative side starts to get him in hot water, first with trying to dig up history of the native lands through his grandmother, then with Candy and Sam when he finds out some of Sam’s secrets. Like a pebble into a pond, the fragile peace is disrupted, but it’s only the beginning. John and Candy find that there are bigger things sending ripples through Shirley County.
My thoughts:
The structure was immaculate. It was well polished and flowed nicely. Sarah is a wordsmith through and through. She doesn’t drop you into a world with little info to go on and head straight for adventure. Instead she builds the world around you little by little. She wants you to feel what it is to be a part of this small community. It was clear that she went to great lengths to make her world and characters as real as possible. The feeling I got from The Tramp is like she was writing a movie, following many different characters throughout the story, but focusing on giving Candy and John difficult life changing event to deal with as they grow up.
Following so many characters made for an interesting view of the events happening in Shirley. You get to see things through many eyes and it feels like you have the inside scoop on everyone. It did however leave me waiting for the pace to pick up. I’m used to stories that may have a longer beginning arc but pick up significantly by breaking into the meaty portions of the action, adventure, and/or suspense. But Sarah shot for the long arc and I ended up putting myself in suspense waiting for something bigger to happen. Unfortunately the 'supernatural mystery' part took a back seat to literary fiction.
I always read a description before opening the cover to dive into the contents. The book’s description was the biggest misdirection to my expectations. It’s long and gives out a significant amount of information that should have been left for the interior and reads like this is going to be a suspenseful story filled with the supernatural. I was disappointed when I reached the end of the book and there had been little suspense and even less supernatural.
My rating:
Were this just a piece of literary fiction following this little town and absent of any supernatural ideas, this book would be easier to rate. It would be undoubtedly 5 stars. The biggest hurdle is that it’s promoted as supernatural and it’s barely a few moments in the story that actually fall into that. I liked the story, but I felt let down that the supernatural part wasn’t bigger than it was. I have to give this a 3 for “I like it".
April 13, 2015
*Received a free copy in exchange for an honest review*
3 stars
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked up The Tramp. Going by the synopsis, I thought it would a supernatural high school drama, but as I read on, it seemed more like a small-town drama with few, if any, supernatural touches.
When the story starts, the reader is treated to the events that lead to John and Candy’s friendship – however, after the prologue, we don’t see the two main characters again for a while (Candy in chapter 2 and John in chapter 17). To me, that was a bit confusing, as the author introduces us to several characters right from the beginning, some we don’t hear about again until much later in the story and only in a passing mention (such as the tourists from the first chapter). For a while, every chapter switches to different groups of characters, sometimes making the story a bit hard to follow, resulting in a plot that almost doesn’t seem linear. At times, I’d forget about certain characters and then have them pop up again as the people we follow in the chapter, throwing me for a loop when I was more interested in what was going on with Candy. There was so much going on in the pages of the book, that at times it felt like the author was trying to do too much – and it was a little overwhelming for me as a reader. This seemed to die down a bit in the latter half of the story, so that everything flowed a little more naturally.
As the story continues, we get to know each character, making for a fairly large cast. Handling a cast that large can be pretty difficult, but the author does it pretty well, so that most of them are pretty well-rounded (though a bit hard to keep track of at times). I can picture meeting people like them in real life, which is part of what continued to carry me through reading it. The characters seemed real, and their problems – though petty for many of them – were enough to keep me going. There were a few times where I thought some of the characters may have been a bit cliche, but it served the purpose of the story, so it was necessary. Over all, the story seemed to be driven by the plot, rather than the characters, so that Candy and John were more reactive than proactive.
Being the first in a series of books, the end of the novel leaves the reader with many questions – hopefully to be answered in the future. The mysteries that do get addressed are looked at only briefly, so that the answers we get by the end of the book are not enough to feel any sort of closure, which is the point if you want people to read the next installment, so the author does a good job of keeping the reader guessing and asking for what comes next.
Conclusion: All in all I enjoyed reading The Tramp. The cast of characters are an interesting group of people and the closed-minded, small-town dynamic intriguing enough to keep the mystery going. If you’re into things like Pretty Little Liars and other high-school drama types, you might want to check out The Tramp.
3 stars
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I picked up The Tramp. Going by the synopsis, I thought it would a supernatural high school drama, but as I read on, it seemed more like a small-town drama with few, if any, supernatural touches.
When the story starts, the reader is treated to the events that lead to John and Candy’s friendship – however, after the prologue, we don’t see the two main characters again for a while (Candy in chapter 2 and John in chapter 17). To me, that was a bit confusing, as the author introduces us to several characters right from the beginning, some we don’t hear about again until much later in the story and only in a passing mention (such as the tourists from the first chapter). For a while, every chapter switches to different groups of characters, sometimes making the story a bit hard to follow, resulting in a plot that almost doesn’t seem linear. At times, I’d forget about certain characters and then have them pop up again as the people we follow in the chapter, throwing me for a loop when I was more interested in what was going on with Candy. There was so much going on in the pages of the book, that at times it felt like the author was trying to do too much – and it was a little overwhelming for me as a reader. This seemed to die down a bit in the latter half of the story, so that everything flowed a little more naturally.
As the story continues, we get to know each character, making for a fairly large cast. Handling a cast that large can be pretty difficult, but the author does it pretty well, so that most of them are pretty well-rounded (though a bit hard to keep track of at times). I can picture meeting people like them in real life, which is part of what continued to carry me through reading it. The characters seemed real, and their problems – though petty for many of them – were enough to keep me going. There were a few times where I thought some of the characters may have been a bit cliche, but it served the purpose of the story, so it was necessary. Over all, the story seemed to be driven by the plot, rather than the characters, so that Candy and John were more reactive than proactive.
Being the first in a series of books, the end of the novel leaves the reader with many questions – hopefully to be answered in the future. The mysteries that do get addressed are looked at only briefly, so that the answers we get by the end of the book are not enough to feel any sort of closure, which is the point if you want people to read the next installment, so the author does a good job of keeping the reader guessing and asking for what comes next.
Conclusion: All in all I enjoyed reading The Tramp. The cast of characters are an interesting group of people and the closed-minded, small-town dynamic intriguing enough to keep the mystery going. If you’re into things like Pretty Little Liars and other high-school drama types, you might want to check out The Tramp.
April 16, 2015
Sarah Wathen brings a new novel to print with “The Tramp.” This book has all the old world feel of a ‘Heidi’ inspired mountain village while leaking the creep factor of ‘Silent Hill’ or a Dean Koontz masterpiece.
The prologue will snatch you up, but it is many chapter later before that starts to make sense – chapters that invest you in a small town life the likes of which you’ve never seen, though there are aspects that ring true for every community. There is the shop owner, the Pastor, the drunk mom, the misunderstood rascal, the gossips, the teens, the children and tourists – and then there’s Candy. Candy is a red headed teen with a past to cry on and a future that proves just as confusing as any young girls dream.
A silent thriller, this novel builds chapter upon chapter, offering sweet moments topped with slightly horrific psychological cherries like a doll’s head filled with maggots and a long haired woman that isn’t really there. There is a quiet horror in the normalcy of this build up, the slight touches that relay a sense of doom without overtly displaying anything. When an exchange student comes to town, it adds to the drama – a drama that is only enhanced when an old friend comes to stay.
The town of Shirley welcomes you.
The prologue will snatch you up, but it is many chapter later before that starts to make sense – chapters that invest you in a small town life the likes of which you’ve never seen, though there are aspects that ring true for every community. There is the shop owner, the Pastor, the drunk mom, the misunderstood rascal, the gossips, the teens, the children and tourists – and then there’s Candy. Candy is a red headed teen with a past to cry on and a future that proves just as confusing as any young girls dream.
A silent thriller, this novel builds chapter upon chapter, offering sweet moments topped with slightly horrific psychological cherries like a doll’s head filled with maggots and a long haired woman that isn’t really there. There is a quiet horror in the normalcy of this build up, the slight touches that relay a sense of doom without overtly displaying anything. When an exchange student comes to town, it adds to the drama – a drama that is only enhanced when an old friend comes to stay.
The town of Shirley welcomes you.
April 27, 2015
The Tramp is the kind of book that makes your heart beat fast all through the reading. As soon as I started, I felt fear, I can't explain why, but it was real, it had me on the edge of my seat till the end.
The plot is full of suspense, mystery, some paranormal, twists and turns, and OMG that town!! Creepy. The characters are complex, the writing is excellent and the situations are very well developed. And I can't not say anything about the art cover, isn't beautiful??
I don't like to copy and paste the synopsis, and hate the reviews full of spoilers, I can only say to you, Go! Go, and grab a copy, you'll not regret it.
*I received a Free copy in exchange for an Honest Review*
The plot is full of suspense, mystery, some paranormal, twists and turns, and OMG that town!! Creepy. The characters are complex, the writing is excellent and the situations are very well developed. And I can't not say anything about the art cover, isn't beautiful??
I don't like to copy and paste the synopsis, and hate the reviews full of spoilers, I can only say to you, Go! Go, and grab a copy, you'll not regret it.
*I received a Free copy in exchange for an Honest Review*
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews