The Cicada Tree Book Trailer
Within the pages of this site, you join me on my journey as a writer of fiction and a human making their way in this world.
To understand me, I will tell you this. A kindergarten teacher once loomed above me, staring down the crooked barrel of her nose. “You are a peculiar sort of boy,” she said, regarding the spangled, ballerina tutu I managed to pull up over my Sears and Roebuck, Toughskin jeans.
She got one thing right. Indeed, I was and still remain “a peculiar sort of boy.” In the by-and-by, I suspect this is just why you might love my writing.
THE CICADA TREE (Moonshine Cove Publishing, February 22, 2022)
Advance Praise:
“Following in the magnificent footsteps of Carson McCullers and Harper Lee, Robert Gwaltney creates a wonderful snapshot of the friendship that forms between Analeise and Etta Mae, two eleven-year-old girls in ‘50’s small town Georgia. His prose is both precise and lyrical, and the loveliness of childhood and their friendship is shadowed by a sense of mystery and foreboding. There is no sound in English than that of Southern speech: there is poetry in every inflection, in every nuance. This is a book to love and remember, and every book club in America would be wise to snap it up.”
–Robert Goolrick, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“The gothic beauty of a relentless Georgia summer is brought to life through Gwaltney’s deliberate details and exquisite imagery, while all the while evil lurks beneath the surface; from where or what the reader does not know but is as convinced by Gwaltney’s expert storytelling as he is.”
–Zoe Fishman, bestselling author of Invisible Air and Georgia Author of the Year 2020
“This is Southern Gothic with a vengeance—a dark blast of family secrets, strained loyalties, and bitter betrayals. We follow young Analeise Newell with fear and hope, dreading what may happen to her even as we turn the pages. Robert Gwaltney is a writer to watch.”
–Christopher Swann, author of Never Turn Back (Crooked Lane Books)
Summary:
“Some things in this world are meant to burn …”
The summer of 1956, a brood of cicadas descends upon Providence Georgia, a natural event with supernatural repercussions, unhinging the life of Analeise Newell, an eleven-year-old piano prodigy. Amidst this emergence, dark obsessions are stirred, uncanny gifts provoked, and secrets unearthed.
During a visit to Mistletoe, a plantation owned by the wealthy Mayfield family, Analeise encounters Cordelia Mayfield and her daughter Marlissa, both of whom possess an otherworldly beauty. A whisper and an act of violence perpetrated during this visit by Mrs. Mayfield all converge to kindle Analeise’s fascination with the Mayfields.
Analeise’s burgeoning obsession with the Mayfield family overshadows her own seemingly, ordinary life, culminating in dangerous games and manipulation, setting off a chain of cataclysmic events with life-altering consequences—all of it unfolding to the maddening whir of a cicada song.