Turner-Yamamoto’s bittersweet fantastical debut involves the parallel stories of two grieving women… As Aurilla says near the end, ‘Loving the dead and gone was the sweetest love of all.’ Reading this story is almost as delectable.”
—Publishers Weekly
There’s more than one aching heart in this excellent story exploring the generational effects of love, loss, betrayal, and redemption.”
—Southern Literary Review
Loving the Dead and Gone is a moving, insightful novel about growing through tragedy..”
—Foreword Reviews
The tale of tragedy, love, and loss is truly one for the ages.”
—Authorlink
Announcing the 2021 Foreword INDIES Winners
TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan: June 16, 2022—Foreword Reviews announced the winners of its INDIES Book of the Year Awards today. The awards recognize the best books published in 2021 from small, independent, and university presses.
“Foreword’s 2021 Independent Publisher of the Year is Regal House Publishing. At not even a decade old, Regal House has already managed to carve out a notable space for itself in independent literature. Motivated by a desire to see quality literary works succeed in a tough marketplace, Jaynie Royal founded the press in 2014, and she has been stunning audiences with a diverse selection of novels, memoirs, and poetic works ever since. 2021 saw the release of several dazzling books from Regal House, including The Femme Fatale Hypothesis, an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller set within a complicated adult relationship. With each new release, Regal House continues to generate excitement and suspense regarding what thrilling titles it will introduce next.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA Contact:
Jennifer Miller
pickworthbell communications
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+1.703.679.8024
LOVING THE DEAD AND GONE RELEASES SEPTEMBER 6
2020 PETRICHOR PRIZE FINALIST
REGAL HOUSE PUBLISHING SOUR MASH SOUTHERN LITERATURE SERIES
Raleigh, NC—Loving the Dead and Gone, debut novel by Judith Turner-Yamamoto and 2020 Petrichor Prize finalist released from Regal House Publishing, Sour Mash Southern Literature series September 6, 2022.
A freak car crash in 1960s rural North Carolina puts in motion moments of grace that bring redemption to two generations of women and the lives they touch.
For forty years Aurilla Cutter has tended a clutch of secrets that have turned her mean and imprinted everyone within her small world. The aFor forty years Aurilla Cutter has tended a clutch of secrets that have turned her mean. A fatal accident becomes the catalyst for the release of the passions, needs, and hurts in everyone affected by her hidden past. Darlene, a seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her dead husband while proving herself still alive. Soon loss and death work their magic, drawing Darlene into an unlikely affair that threatens to upend Aurilla’s family, and sets loose Aurilla’s own memories of longing and infidelity.
As Aurilla’s forbidden and heartbreaking story of love, death, and repeated loss alternates with Darlene’s, the divide of generations and time narrows and collapses, building to the unlikely collision of two women’s yearnings, which will free them both from the past. Loving the Dead and Gone is a lyrical novel that explores how both grief and love are the ties that bind.
Loving the Dead and Gone
book cover
Judith Turner-Yamamoto
author portrait
Praise for Loving the Dead and Gone
Loving the Dead and Gone is a rich and skillfully rendered portrait of a place that explores the generational effects of love and loss and the fragile connections within a family. Judith Turner-Yamamoto gives us a complex and memorable cast of characters and a vivid setting filled with stunning detail.”
—Jill McCorkle, Author of Hieroglyphics and the New York Times Best Seller, Life After Life
Loving the Dead and Gone is an absorbing account of two generations of women, living in North Carolina, who struggle to put love at the centre of their lives. How well Turner-Yamamoto understands the complexities of passion, the necessity of work, and the limits of small towns. This beautifully written novel, with its complicated, stubborn characters, will haunt you long after the last page.”
—Margot Livesey, Author of The Boy in The Field, the New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books 2019, and the New York Times Best Seller The Flight of Gemma Hardy
There has been an accident in tiny Gold Ridge, a place where most lives revolve around farming the earth or working the hosiery mill, and everyone is changed by it. In a voice that rings with the colloquial timbre of William Faulkner melded with the rural realism of Carol Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine, Judith Turner-Yamamoto brilliantly uses a tragedy to draw us into a place so real you can smell it, where her tapestry of narrator voices captivates us with empathy and love. I was fortunate to be on the panel of the Ohio Artistic Awards in Literature that chose to award Loving the Dead and Gone, recognizing its lyric strength and deep and empathic understanding of rural America.”
—Elizabeth Cohen, author of The Hypothetical Girl
Our favorite way to find good books is to take the recommendations of our favorite authors. So, after a glowing blurb from Margot Livesey (“The Boy in The Field”), we’re eagerly awaiting the September arrival of Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s novel, “Loving The Dead and Gone.” Turner-Yamamoto brings readers to North Carolina, where she was raised, to tell the story of two generations of women grappling with love, death and yearnings.”
—Hillary Copsey, book adviser, The Mercantile Library
Our favorite way to find good books is to take the recommendations of our favorite authors. So, after a glowing blurb from Margot Livesey (“The Boy in The Field”), we’re eagerly awaiting the September arrival of Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s novel, “Loving The Dead and Gone.” Turner-Yamamoto brings readers to North Carolina, where she was raised, to tell the story of two generations of women grappling with love, death and yearnings.”
—Hillary Copsey, book adviser, The Mercantile Library
I’m convinced this story will engage many readers, excite book club members, and that the quality of the writing will impress reviewers. It should be a must purchase for public libraries.”
—Gina Millsap, library consultant and former CEO of The Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library
Turner-Yamamoto’s multigenerational saga reminds me of Bobbie Gentry’s great Patchwork album, with a touch of William Goyen, Lee Smith, and Our Town. This bittersweet paean to a NC Piedmont hosiery mill town is a mid- 20th century time capsule of car wrecks, nerve medicine, open caskets, ghosts, and gossip. Bad luck and trouble ricochet between families until desire and memories are swept away. And yet, the female lens and circular narrative make Loving the Dead and Gone a sensory delight.”
—Richard Peabody, editor, Gargoyle Magazine
Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s Loving the Dead and Gone is a love story that begins with a tragedy, proceeds through loss and suffering, and winds up in a place of deeply earned redemption. Though there are several characters who guide us through this unstoppable narrative, none is more breathtakingly rendered that Aurilla Cutter. Women like Aurilla, we say in the South, will live forever because they’re too mean to die. Ah, but Aurilla has a past that will touch your heart and explain her present. She’s an unforgettable character among a cast of unforgettables, from her put-upon daughter Berta Mae, to the heartbroken and fiery seventeen-year-old widow, Darlene, to Berta Mae’s haunted husband, Clayton. Actually, everything about Loving the Dead and Gone, to Judith Turner-Yamamoto’s great credit, is unforgettable.”
—Ed Falco, author of the New York Times Best Seller, The Family Corleone
Judith Turner-Yamamoto has written a brilliant debut novel born of her native Southern heritage. Steeped in love and generational conflicts, this North Carolina family faces their romantic disappointments and difficult times with courage tempered by a tough country spirit. In lyrical, tightly-knit prose Turner-Yamamoto has created a gem reminiscent of Eudora Welty’s classic stories.”
—Kay Sloan, author of The Patron Saint of Red Chevys, a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection
AUTHOR: Judith Turner-Yamamoto
PUB DATE: September 6, 2022
PAPERBACK: 256 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1646032587
TRIM SIZE: 8.5 × .8 × 5.5 in
US $17.95/CAN $22.99
EPUB/MOBIPOCKET
ISBN-13: 978-1646032594
US $9.99/CAN $12.99
AUDIOBOOK:
Narrators: Cassandra Campbell, Suzanne Toren, various narrators, Sophie Amoss, Roger Clark
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Audio Length: 10 hours
Release Date: September 6, 2022
Format: Unabridged
ISBN-13: 979-8212275361
DISTRIBUTION:
Independent Publishers Group
814 N. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610
800.888.4741
[email protected]
Canadian Manda Group
664 Annette Street
Toronto, Ontario, ON
Canada M6S2C8
416.516.0911
[email protected]
