Blood on the Roses

It’s Valentine’s week, I am giving a shout out to some of my favorite VHP authors whom I feel privileged to have met and grown to love.  They don’t know I’m doing this…it’s my secret surprise Valentine to each of them.  You’ve met Smoky Trudeau Zeidel, Charmaine Gordon, Melinda Clayton , Chelle Cordero,  Malcolm Campbell and Marilyn Celeste Morris and L.E.Harvey . The next author I’d like to introduce is Robert Hays.

Robert Hays has authored and co-authored numerous books;  Circles in the Water, The Life and Death of Lizzie Morris, The Baby River Angel,  and Blood on the Roses, to name a few. 

One of my favorite books by Robert Hays is, Blood on the Roses.  It's set in Tennessee, in 1955 at the height of America's concern over the murder of a black teenager by white racists, and tells the tale of a reporter from Baltimore who is sent to the South to cover the story.  It is a compelling story of terrible acts of discrimination and a garden of roses that holds the key.   

 

Robert  has been a newspaper reporter, public relations writer, magazine editor, and university professor and administrator. A native of Illinois, he taught in Texas and Missouri and retired in 2008 from a long journalism teaching career at the University of Illinois. He has spent a great deal of time in South Carolina, the home state of his wife, Mary, and is a member of the South Carolina Writers Workshop. His publications include academic journal and popular periodical articles and eight previous books, one released in paperback under a new title. Robert and Mary live in Champaign, Illinois. They have two sons and a grandson and share a cat named Eddie with the family next door.   Robert says, “it’s a long story!” 

For more information visit Robert’s website:  http://home.comcast.net/~roberthayswriter/site/

Since I’m originally from Missouri and Robert spent much time there, I’d like to wish him a special Show-Me-State Valentine’s Day!  J