Song of the Chimney Sweep

by Tamatha Cain

Overview

Love is a song played on repeat…
​
A cryptic blog post leads cold case podcasters Melody and Dorian on a twisty journey back in time to uncover the mysterious story of a forgotten missing woman.
 
In 1969 near the Florida/Georgia Line, idealistic young Betty Langdon and fast-rising R&B singer Dominicus Owens begin an irresistible but dangerous interracial romance that ends under mysterious, heartbreaking circumstances. Betty is forced to return to her rural home to care for her manipulative mother, while Dominicus goes on to mega-stardom with his band The Downtown Sound. She follows his skyrocketing career from behind the front desk of a dying highway motel--until one day decades later, she disappears.
 
Now, a popular true crime podcast produced by college friends Melody Hinterson and Dorian Santos takes on the cold case of a missing local woman. The duo’s carefully-balanced workplace dynamic is weirdly off-kilter lately, but they can't take their eyes off the investigation as the intriguing new story suddenly boosts the show into the national spotlight. When the investigation uncovers the missing woman's diaries full of family secrets and the local legend of a fortune hidden in an old chimney somewhere in town, the truth behind the podcast's mystery becomes personal, and Melody must make life-changing choices before the final episode airs.

But who owns the rights to a secret?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781949935394
Publisher:	Orange Blossom Publishing
Publication date:	08/30/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	485
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Tamatha Cain is a former musician and bandleader. Awards include: 2024 International Book Award, Short List: 2024 Historical Novel Society First Chapters Competition, 2022 Florida Book Award, 2020 Royal Palm Literary Award, and Grand Prize in The Experience Poetry Competition. She writes reviews for Southern Literary Review, and is a member of Women's Fiction Writers Association, Women Writing the West, WFWA Historical Fiction Affinity Group, and Historical Novel Society. She is a wife and mother of three and lives in a hundred-year-old bungalow in North Florida, in close proximity to the historic locations found in her novel Song of the Chimney Sweep.

Read an Excerpt

The dark asphalt road glowed with puddled yellow light. Betty strolled to the nearest light pole

and stopped, listening. Her head bobbed along with the music, the harmony buzzing through her belly.

She walked to the next light pole, stopped again, one hand against the humid wood. My Girl. She loved that song—the harmony so sweet, it brought a craving to her tongue. She swallowed hard.

She looked back toward the saloon, then forward again toward the sound. It was coming from one of

the small shotgun houses on the other side of the street. It wasn’t a record. People were singing. No

instruments, only voices. A cappella. Like the hymn mama suggested last week at choir practice, mostly

to put that haughty organist Vera in her place. Betty leaned toward the source of the sound, then pulled

back, anchored to the post.

Whoa, whoa, whoa…they improvised, somehow, in harmony. The voices sang on about all that honey and those envious bees. Tantalizing. Her mind filled in the trumpet hit. She set her jaw tight and tilted her head, then stepped out toward the next light pole. She stopped between posts, pressed her clutch against the front of her skirt, clenched her knees together with a shudder. Her shoulders swayed to the rhythm, a rhythm snapped by fingers on a porch across the street.

There were figures. Five men on the porch, singing and snapping The Temptations song. Her mother didn’t even like their name, let alone their music.

But her mother wasn’t here.

Table of Contents

BETTY: JANUARY 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST TRAILER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE ONE . . . . . . . . .28

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE TWO . . . . . . . . . 35

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .46

BETTY: 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

BETTY’S DIARY: DECEMBER 1, 1969 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE THREE. . . . . . . .69

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .86

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE FOUR. . . . . . . . . 93

BETTY: SUMMER 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100

BETTY’S DIARY: JULY 14, 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE FIVE . . . . . . . . 128

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

BETTY’S DIARY: DECEMBER 1, 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

BETTY: 1971. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

BETTY’S DIARY: FEBRUARY 8, 1971 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .166

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE SIX . . . . . . . . . 176

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

BETTY: 1975 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .189

BETTY’S DIARY: APRIL 12, 1975. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .198

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE SEVEN. . . . . . .203

BETTY: 1976 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .204

BETTY’S DIARY: OCTOBER 20, 1977 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE EIGHT. . . . . . . 219

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE NINE. . . . . . . . 234

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

BETTY: 1984 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

BETTY’S DIARY: NOVEMBER 21, 1984. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE TEN. . . . . . . . . 261

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .269

BETTY: 1985 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

BETTY’S DIARY: 1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

BETTY’S DIARY: 1995 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE ELEVEN. . . . . . 287

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

BETTY’S DIARY: SEPTEMBER 2, 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .307

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE TWELVE . . . . .309

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE THIRTEEN. . . . 316

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE FOURTEEN . . . 352

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE FIFTEEN . . . . . 361

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

BETTY’S DIARY: MARCH 4, 1971 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE SIXTEEN . . . . . 383

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .396

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .418

BETTY’S DIARY: NOVEMBER 15, 1970. . . . . . . . . . . . . .420

TABS AND BLANKS PODCAST EPISODE SEVENTEEN . .424

MELODY: 2019 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .428