Read more
Eleven-year-old Bethany's life implodes when her mother buys a farm in West Virginia. In the move, Bethany loses her supportive grandmother, her best friends, and the excitement of living in a bustling Ohio town. At the small school she is forced to attend, the sixth-grade girls are friendly at first. Then, led by a domineering girl named Marsha, the girls turn on her, teasing and taunting. Now Bethany is stuck. In the middle of nowhere. With no friends, no new big middle school, no movies, no grandmother.
Then comes the day she trudges up the ridge above their farm and discovers the ruins of an old cabin. Moss covered rocks reveal the outlines of another life-one that also shattered, but centuries ago. Bethany sits on the hearth stone of a chimney. Whispers from the stones tell a tale of tenderness and catastrophe. Frightened, curious, she struggles to unearth what really happened on that lonely hill. How will that story change her own forever?
Middle grade fiction. 48,000 words.
About the author
Biography -Jane Ellen Freeman grew up in northeast Ohio's Ashtabula County. After college, she taught middle school in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she had a home on Cheat Lake. Jane Ellen writes for children, teens, and adults. Many of her stories have a touch of fantasy: a ghost, a time shift to pioneer times, a guardian angel, and in her teen novels--parallel universes. A recently released historical fiction ghost story BEYOND THE STONE EAGLE GATE (October 2019) has received positive acclaim from both teen and adult readers.
Jane Ellen is a member of West Virginia Writers, Florida Writers Association, and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Two chapter books, JEREMIAH LUCKY AND THE GUARDIAN ANGEL and JEREMIAH LUCKY FINDS PUPPY LOVE, are Jane's first published books for children. Jane Ellen is pleased to debut THE WHISPERING CHIMNEY with Ingram/Spark. She now lives in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia where she enjoys the strong community of writers near Shepherdstown and the many programs offered by Shepherd University and Four Seasons Bookstore.
