Plowed Fields

A family you won't forget … Infused with warmth, heart and hope … Glazed with the sorrow of a devastating truth. It's December 1960, and a cold wind is blowing a rare white Christmas toward the Baker farm in South Georgia. Joe Baker, an intense young man hell-bent on achievement and responsibility, finds himself torn between his own desire and ambition and his loyalty and responsibility to his family. The oldest of six children, Joe can be counted on to make all the right moves, but what happens when his instincts fail him? Plowed Fields is a family saga, played out between the turbulent years of 1960 and 1970. It's the story of people coming together and falling apart, relying on God and losing faith, and pushing forward and fighting back in times of crisis. Besides Joe, Plowed Fields features a cast of characters searching for a place to belong as they confront the hardships of their time. The Baker family is anchored by patriarch Sam, whose pirate's appearance disguises a gentle giant of goodness, and his son, Matt, who is capable of strength and force when necessary but unafraid of tenderness when the moment requires a softer touch. Matt's wife is Caroline, a practical woman whose pride occasionally gets the best of her Christian values. Plowed Fields also features Lucas and Beauty Bartholomew, a young black man and woman struggling to build a better life for their family; Bobby Taylor, the epitome of a racist Southerner and then some; and Paul Berrien, a banker turned sheriff who has a shadow hanging over his aristocratic birthright. Framed within that white Christmas, the Baker family seems poised on the brink of a grand experience. As the decade unfolds, however, the Bakers and their friends move from the tobacco field to the battlefield, from main street to city lights, from the church door to the gates of Hell. They face fire and famine, war and peace, good and evil—all leading up to a startling chain of events that unleashes unthinkable consequences and sends them searching for understanding of a senseless situation. In his debut novel, Jim Barber has captured a time and place in Americana with lyrical precision and stunning beauty. Amid the darkness and evil, he has infused this story with warmth, heart and hope as promising as a newly plowed field.