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Surface and Shadow
What are you willing to risk to break free?
Smothered by her husband's expectations and the rigid gender roles of the 1970s, Lydia Colton sees a chance to rediscover and unfetter herself—if only she can find out the truth about a wealthy man's suspicious death.
According to history in the small town of Tanner, North Carolina, Howard Galloway died from accidentally drinking poison moonshine, leaving his twin brother, Henry, sole heir to the family's cotton mill and fortune. When Lydia hears that some people suspect Henry killed Howard, she impulsively starts asking questions and is soon tangled up in the Galloway secrets, which no one—least of all the Galloways—wants her to pursue.
Lydia's husband, Jeff, warns her that enraging Henry, the richest and most prominent employer in town, could jeopardize Jeff's career in Tanner, and soon Lydia and Jeff's marriage is at risk. But attempts by Jeff and other townspeople to thwart Lydia only make her more determined to solve the riddles she's uncovered.
Will revealing the truth save or destroy her?
Smothered by her husband's expectations and the rigid gender roles of the 1970s, Lydia Colton sees a chance to rediscover and unfetter herself—if only she can find out the truth about a wealthy man's suspicious death.
According to history in the small town of Tanner, North Carolina, Howard Galloway died from accidentally drinking poison moonshine, leaving his twin brother, Henry, sole heir to the family's cotton mill and fortune. When Lydia hears that some people suspect Henry killed Howard, she impulsively starts asking questions and is soon tangled up in the Galloway secrets, which no one—least of all the Galloways—wants her to pursue.
Lydia's husband, Jeff, warns her that enraging Henry, the richest and most prominent employer in town, could jeopardize Jeff's career in Tanner, and soon Lydia and Jeff's marriage is at risk. But attempts by Jeff and other townspeople to thwart Lydia only make her more determined to solve the riddles she's uncovered.
Will revealing the truth save or destroy her?
- GenresFiction
ebook
Published September 1, 2016
56 people are currently reading
390 people want to read
About the author
Sally Whitney
7 books29 followersAlthough Sally Whitney has spent most of her adult life in other parts of the United States, her imagination lives in the South, the homeland of her childhood. “Whenever I dream of a story,” she says, “I feel the magic of red clay hills, magnolia trees, soft voices, sudden thunder storms, and rich emotions. The South is a wonderland of mysteries, legends, and jokes handed down through generations of family storytellers, people like me.”
Sally is a fan of stories in almost any medium, including literature, theater, and film. She’d rather spend an afternoon in the audience across from the footlights than anywhere else, and she thinks DVDs and streaming movies are the greatest inventions since the automobile. She loves libraries and gets antsy if she has to drive very far without an audio book to listen to.
The stories Sally writes have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, including Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest 2017 and Grow Old Along With Me—The Best Is Yet To Be, the audio version of which was a Grammy Award finalist in the Spoken Word category.
Her first novel, Surface and Shadow, was released by Pen-L Publishing in 2016. Her second, When Enemies Offend Thee, was released in 2020
She is a member of The Authors Guild and was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Sally currently lives in Pennsylvania. When she isn’t writing, reading, watching movies, or attending plays, she likes to poke around in antique shops looking for treasures. “The best things in life are the ones that have been loved, whether by you or somebody else,” she says.
Sally is a fan of stories in almost any medium, including literature, theater, and film. She’d rather spend an afternoon in the audience across from the footlights than anywhere else, and she thinks DVDs and streaming movies are the greatest inventions since the automobile. She loves libraries and gets antsy if she has to drive very far without an audio book to listen to.
The stories Sally writes have been published in literary magazines and anthologies, including Best Short Stories from The Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest 2017 and Grow Old Along With Me—The Best Is Yet To Be, the audio version of which was a Grammy Award finalist in the Spoken Word category.
Her first novel, Surface and Shadow, was released by Pen-L Publishing in 2016. Her second, When Enemies Offend Thee, was released in 2020
She is a member of The Authors Guild and was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Sally currently lives in Pennsylvania. When she isn’t writing, reading, watching movies, or attending plays, she likes to poke around in antique shops looking for treasures. “The best things in life are the ones that have been loved, whether by you or somebody else,” she says.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 25, 2016
I love a novel that keeps me turning pages and also gives me issues to think about. Surface and Shadow does both. I could identify with Lydia Colton immediately, which caused me to cheer for her and fear for her on every step of her quest to find out the truth about the death of Howard Galloway, a young man who was one of two heirs to his family’s cotton mill and fortune. I worried about what was going to happen to Lydia, and at the same time I couldn’t wait to see what happened next. I also understood the frustrations she was experiencing in her life. Women in the 1970s were beginning to realize the limitations society placed on them, and out of that realization began the modern march that’s led to the first woman nominated for President of the United States. Whitney nails the details of the era and of Lydia’s life in this small southern mill town, illuminating the defining roles shaped by gender, class, and race. Lydia is driven by the need to find justice for Howard, but just as consuming is her need to find a way to be the person she wants and needs to be. The characters in this novel are authentic, as real as your neighbors and family. They’re not all good or all bad, just people trying to live their lives within and sometimes outside the ways expected of them. I look forward to the next intriguing novel from this author.
May 31, 2017
I may not be totally objective about this novel, but I think it's a good story.
May 19, 2017
SURFACE and SHADOW A Suspenseful Story in a Time of Redefined Roles
"The cardinal flitted from branch to branch in the old maple tree, his scarlet body disappearing behind the leaves and reappearing like a drop of blood.''
Pull up your rocking chair to read Sally Whitney’s first novel of a 1970’s Southern girl, with a book under one arm and a toddler under the other. Against her husband’s advice, she pushes back against prickly issues of her old, small town. She refutes her husband’s and the town’s authority, crosses well-established racial lines, and attempts to liberate a mentally challenged woman from isolation. Your chair stops rocking. You slip to the edge of your seat, caught in the intrigue and danger of being discovered as she sets to expose a well-guarded mystery, hidden away for three generations.
Ms. Whitney, herself a southern girl, artfully and authoritatively spins a suspenseful story in a time of redefined roles, bringing her heroine and story to a satisfactory redemption.
"The cardinal flitted from branch to branch in the old maple tree, his scarlet body disappearing behind the leaves and reappearing like a drop of blood.''
Pull up your rocking chair to read Sally Whitney’s first novel of a 1970’s Southern girl, with a book under one arm and a toddler under the other. Against her husband’s advice, she pushes back against prickly issues of her old, small town. She refutes her husband’s and the town’s authority, crosses well-established racial lines, and attempts to liberate a mentally challenged woman from isolation. Your chair stops rocking. You slip to the edge of your seat, caught in the intrigue and danger of being discovered as she sets to expose a well-guarded mystery, hidden away for three generations.
Ms. Whitney, herself a southern girl, artfully and authoritatively spins a suspenseful story in a time of redefined roles, bringing her heroine and story to a satisfactory redemption.
October 3, 2018
A friend told me she made A grades in high school, but her parents didn't expect her to go to college, as they expected her brother to. We--at least we men--tend to forget, or overlook, the peripheral role to which women were relegated historically and to which women are relegated presently. Surface and Shadow takes us to a small North Carolina town in the 1970s, a place where, and a time when, women were expected to be wives, obedient ones at that. In this intriguing mystery, as our young doctor's wife protagonist unravels the truth of an uninvestigated death in the past of the town's patriarchal family, she also strikes a blow for social change that reaches beyond her life and time.
June 4, 2020
What a wonderful book SURFACE AND SHADOW is about an intelligent and independent woman of the 1970s. The protagonist, Lydia, broke out of the traditional mold of women in her choice of college major and profession. A move to another town changed all this, where she was at first forced to take steps backward. She didn’t cave into that life, but instead worked to open avenues for some living there and free others from shackles of past secrets. In doing that she learned more of herself and what she wanted for her life. Sally Whitney portrayed perfectly the challenges faced by women everywhere then and sometimes now. Every reader could feel exactly what Lydia felt. It’s a book worth reading and re-reading.
September 17, 2018
Disappointing! I didn't like the main character, Lydia or her husband. I found it impossible to like Lydia, particularly when she, as a guest in a home, went snooping in their home, going in a room and through drawers in their bedroom. That isn't acceptable behavior but the writer seemed to think it was just fine. The story could have been much better if told differently without Lydia being such a nosy, pushy person.
April 11, 2019
If you are in the mood to curl up with a good cup of tea/coffee and fall into the 1970’s world of a curious young mother and wife who challenges the typical image of a mother/wife of that period, then Surface and Shadows is your “go-to” book. An engaging and enjoyable story is delivered to us by the author as she creates the ebb and flow of life in a small town in Tanner, N.C. It is uplifting to see the main character, Lydia, whose strong sense of right and wrong leads her to question the past stories of the town’s individuals-all against her husband’s wishes- but with her perseverance she eventually brings out the truth which frees a prominent family from their secrets of the past. Sally Whitney has a gift with words which will give your hours of pleasure.
Catherine McCrary
Atlanta, GA.
Catherine McCrary
Atlanta, GA.
June 6, 2019
This was listed as 'historical fiction', so I guess the 1970's are 'historical' now?! Man, I feel old!
Still, the book is pretty good - although the reason brother came home early was pretty easy to guess.... Interesting characters - even some were pains. Well written mystery/suspense. Solid 4.
Still, the book is pretty good - although the reason brother came home early was pretty easy to guess.... Interesting characters - even some were pains. Well written mystery/suspense. Solid 4.
January 16, 2020
I enjoyed uncovering the mystery of the Galloway family and I love that it takes place in North Carolina because that's where I live. However, I'm a fan of the Happily Ever After endings and this story fails in that area.
January 25, 2019
Good story
Finding our purpose is not always easy and often is fraught with conflict. This story is just such a journey. A good read and thought provoking.
Finding our purpose is not always easy and often is fraught with conflict. This story is just such a journey. A good read and thought provoking.
September 12, 2016
Undercurrents of social change that emerged in the early 1970s shattered social conventions and paved the way to freedoms we now enjoy. Surface and Shadow takes us back to 1972, to a small, North Carolina mill town where newcomer Lydia Colton challenges those conventions, setting off a chain reaction that threatens her husband’s new medical practice and their marriage. Intrigued by tales of the mysterious death of one of the town’s most prominent residents many years before, Lydia sets out to determine whether it was accidental or something more sinister. She runs afoul of propriety in ways that will bring a knowing smile to readers who were beginning their adult lives back then or who grew up in a small town where everybody knew your business and had an opinion about how you were conducting it. The path Lydia travels to unravel the mystery and find meaning in her own life speaks to the painful introspection we all face during times of transition and displacement.
September 6, 2016
This unassuming novel succeeds on a number of levels. It neatly recreates life in a small North Carolina town in the early 1970s, when gender and class determined one’s role in life. It’s character-driven plot focuses on a complex young woman unwilling to live within the constraints imposed by her husband or society. And it grabs hold of the reader as it unveils a devilish mystery that has gone undetected for a generation.
The novel opens with the protagonist, Lydia Colton, applying for a library card and being told it has to be in her husband’s name because “we always issue our cards in the husband’s name.” The scene sets the tone for what follows when Lydia decides she has to uncover the facts behind the suspicious death of the one of the town’s most important residents, even if that means risking her husband’s wrath (and his job) and her own safety.
The story is told in an elegant but approachable style that held my interest from start to finish.
The novel opens with the protagonist, Lydia Colton, applying for a library card and being told it has to be in her husband’s name because “we always issue our cards in the husband’s name.” The scene sets the tone for what follows when Lydia decides she has to uncover the facts behind the suspicious death of the one of the town’s most important residents, even if that means risking her husband’s wrath (and his job) and her own safety.
The story is told in an elegant but approachable style that held my interest from start to finish.
November 14, 2016
How do I know if I have read a good book? I have a few personal tests that seem to work for me. First, It has to be well-written. By that I mean the words, the story, and the characters need to sing in harmony with a clear melody. Sally Whitney has a knack for dialogue and the book has a rhythm of its own. It is gentle but it keeps nudging you to read more. I also know if I have read a good book if I can smell the place. I know the smells of the town of Tanner, its streets, picnics, and homes. My final test is one that creeps up on me. I will be having a friendly conversation and at some point I say something like, "You won't believe what that just happened to a friend of mine." only to I realize that my friend, Lydia, is fictional character from from the 1970's. Lydia reminds me of both Miss Marple (Agatha Christie) and Bess Steed Garner (Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey). Surface and Shadow is a truly lovely first novel.
September 25, 2016
This intriguing Southern novel blends mystery with an early view of social changes in a well-crafted story. Set in the 1970s, the story is told with careful attention to detail, especially regarding life in a Southern mill town of that era. Whitney gradually reveals the life of a young mother eager for more than the traditional role of a doctor's wife. The evolution of the heroine's increasing boldness is interwoven with a family mystery that makes it hard to put this one down. Her rich characters are realistic with no pure heroes or villains. You will enjoy this first novel and hope for more to come from a talented writer.
July 7, 2018
This is a remarkable mystery story in which a woman begins to find herself and help those she cares about. Lydia Colton has a strong spirit that cannot be put down despite an entire conservative town standing against her. The story kept me intrigued from the very beginning and wanting to know what would happen next. Sally Whitney has done a fine job with her debut novel, and I eagerly await her next book!
April 7, 2017
Sally Whitney’s novel Surface and Shadow does a fine job of exploring what life was like for a southern woman in a small town in the early ‘70s. Lydia, the main character, has married a doctor in what appears to be an ideal relationship. He has a promising future if he returns to the small town where he grew up and takes over a retiring physician’s practice. But Lydia soon discovers that the town’s scion, Henry Galloway, owner of the mill, has a secret he doesn’t want uncovered, and she becomes the person who reveals the truth. In the process, she also unveils her own hidden desires, not appropriate for a woman of her social status at that time and is still true for many women in similar circumstances today. And the ideal marriage loses its luster.
Surface and Shadow is a contemporary story in many other ways in its exploration of prejudice against gays, blacks, and the mentally or physically challenged among us. But it also reads like a mystery. I couldn’t put it down until I learned how all of the narrative’s entanglements would conclude.
Surface and Shadow is a contemporary story in many other ways in its exploration of prejudice against gays, blacks, and the mentally or physically challenged among us. But it also reads like a mystery. I couldn’t put it down until I learned how all of the narrative’s entanglements would conclude.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews