Trees in the Mist - Neil, Michael

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Résumé :
Trees in the Mist is a five-part novel about a family line that begins with the young man, John Dowling, coming to America in the mid-1700s bringing his father's flintlock musket. He finds himself along the northern coast of Maine where he meets up with a man, Samuel Bryant, who takes a liking to the boy and invites him to stay with his family. What ensues is a love story surrounding the revolutionary war and the fight for freedom. The town of Machias, Maine is a hotbed of the Son's of Liberty. The story follows John Dowling and Margaret Bryant, and their son's children and grandchildren for a hundred and fifty years to the early 1900s with Edwin Dowling and Lucy Cook. Both were born in Whiting, Maine, but Lucy's family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts. Edwin's neighbor encourages him to go find her sister's daughter in Lowell. This novel is about the adventures of life, love, and loss, happiness, sadness, hopes and dreams, tragedy and triumph. It makes the dash on a headstone between the dates born and died come to life. Mike Neil says. Writing a novel is like time travel and meeting your characters and coming to know them. Reading the novel should do that for the reader as well. The story is linked by the flintlock musket that is handed down through the generations. Edwin convinces Lucy that he needs to come west to Oregon to find a better life. Lucy has to travel across the country on the transcontinental railroad with her four children including a six-month-old baby. Edwin's brother had sent a letter that his salary of one dollar a day working in the woods would be doubled. Edwin had left six months earlier and taken his four-year-old daughter, Louisa, with him. This is an American story that could belong to anyone. Just maybe it will inspire you to clear the mist in your own story. It is hard to know where you are going unless you know where you have been, and where you came from.

Biographie:
Mike Neil retired in 2002 as a Washington State Fish and Wildlife Officer after 30 years. He went into the ministry as a Minister of Discipleship in a Lutheran Church in Puyallup. Leaving that church in 2008, he started a chaplain ministry with the State of Washington. Mike and his wife Sue were high school sweethearts and were married in June of 1973. After all these years, they are still best friends. They had three children, losing an infant son, Ryan, in 1981, and in 2006 losing a 27-year-old married Daughter, Susanne. People ask how he became a chaplain. Mike says for him; it was losing Susanne and experiencing how that changes you. Their Son James is married with two grown children, and he is the Director of Athletics for the Tacoma School District. Additionally, Mike is a notable northwest Pen and Ink artist and author. Sue retired from teaching and is now leads women's ministries at Harborview Fellowship Church in Gig Harbor.Today Mike is the Executive Director and founder of the Washington State Chaplain Foundation supporting the chaplaincy for the Washington State Patrol and the Department of Fish and Wildlife Police Chaplain Program. In 2020 Mike was elected to Regional Director for the International Conference of Police Chaplains, a six-state region including Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon.