Author Offers Unique View on Changing Racial Scene

DESIRE STREET BOOKS * LOUIS HILLARY PARK

All That the River Holds

561-758-8662 * [email protected]

Raised in Mississippi during the 1960s, Wellington, Florida author Louis Hillary Park vividly remembers “Colored” drinking fountains, windows on the side or around back where African American citizens had to go to order a take-out meal or a cold drink; and he remembers crosses burning in the night.

Park’s commercial fiction debut – All That the River Holds– powerfully captures the explosive atmosphere of that time in the Deep South, even as today our nation continues to wrestle with many of the same issues. It also unflinchingly takes on the public and deeply personal issues related to prejudices against women who are physically challenged (wheelchair-users).

Park is an award-winning print journalist with stops at newspapers in Mississippi, Louisiana and South Florida. As a mass communications/journalism major and college radio personality at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), he is uniquely equipped to speak passionately and confidently on these subjects.

Released in November 2019 (ISBN 978-1-7283-3141-6)All That the River Holds is, at its core, a unique love story, but its mystery and suspense elements will keep any reader turning the pages.

The central character, Holly Lee Carter, is a young, beautiful photo-journalist left paralyzed while covering the Vietnam War. When she inherits her family newspaper she reluctantly leaves her adopted home in Los Angeles and returns to segregated Cattahatchie County – “the last of its kind, even in Mississippi.”

Through the long, fierce, smoldering summer of 1969, Holly fights to keep the newspaper out of bankruptcy and the hands of the Klan, while coming to believe her father’s death was no accident. Help comes from a surprising source, Cutter Carlucci – “the best football player anyone around here has ever seen up close.” Cutter has a chip on his shoulder about “cripples” put there by his brutal and dangerous Klansman father, but he and Holly form a bond of respect, friendship and finally passion that overcomes the town’s prejudices and their own.

KirkusReviews says:

“… the author’s ability to turn a phrase, capturing in a few words time and place and atmosphere is a joy. Solid character portrayals, personal melodrama, a murder mystery and unrestrained violence propel this page-turner to its explosive conclusion … and addictive read with some final surprises.”

New York Times bestselling author John RamseyMiller says:

“Louis Hillary Park is one of those rare authors who spins an intelligent story driven by complex, believable characters with heartbeats a reader can hear.”

Read a sample chapter and learn more about River @ https://www.lhpark-author.com/home/