Peachtree City author Jill Smith Entrekin’s second novel, “Buck’s Junction,” debuts July 1 and will be available online at Amazon.com and www.Room272.weebly.com and in local book stores.
Staying true to her Southern roots, the book is a coming-of-age story set in a small Georgia town that tells the touching, funny and sometimes heartbreaking story of best friends, who just happen to be cousins. Entrekin’s first novel, “Star of Flint,” was published in 2011.
Buck and Lonnie are cousins growing up together on the dirt roads and winding railroad tracks of a Georgia railroad town. They are both gifted athletes and altar boys who enjoy the sweet, simple pleasures of their small town life: watching the train roar through the junction each day, gazing at the stars from high atop the water tower and hunting with the best bird dog in the county.
For Buck and Lonnie, life in the summer of 1960 is good. That is until Uncle Elwood shows up. A mean, sadistic drunk who takes pleasure in tormenting others, Elwood sets his sights on Lonnie and Buck, and their once innocent, idyllic world will change forever.
In the great tradition of Southern writers, Entrekin paints a rich picture of life in rural Georgia featuring colorful characters and lessons about the strength of family and the inevitability of shattered innocence.
“Buck’s Junction” will make you laugh, it will make you cry, and it will remind you that sometimes only a best friend can help you get through the hurdles life puts in your way.
Entrekin’s childhood in a Georgia mill town influences her writing in many ways.
“I think Southerners are more inclined to wear their feelings on their sleeves, which makes for colorful characters and usually a heart-wrenching tale,” said Entrekin.
“Southern writers aren’t ashamed to trample on political correctness – to tell a true story with honesty and humor. I’m a Southern girl. I’ve eaten Georgia peaches and climbed magnolias all my life. I never tire of the personalities who bubble with uniquely Southern messages to share in this region of our country.”
“’Buck’s Junction’ is written with an original Deep South perspective—not so much with a Southern accent as with an accent on the South” said David Anders, owner of Room 272 Press. “Jill Smith Entrekin’s ability to revive forgotten times with a story that grabs the reader’s attention demonstrates her years spent refining an understanding of the art form that is good writing. While her biography may say she has retired from teaching, I would argue that she has continued with an expanded classroom—and her readers are enriched by her seemingly natural gift of communicating a riveting story.”
Entrekin, a native of Thomaston, Ga. taught high school English in the Atlanta area for more than 30 years.
From wearing a black dress with a red “A” on the first day of teaching Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” to dressing up in overalls and a straw hat to introduce Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” Entrekin used unconventional means to instill a love of literature in her students.
After retiring from teaching, Entrekin’s love of the written word led her down a new path as she began work on her first novel, Star of Flint, which was published in 2011 and maintains a five star rating on Amazon.com. Jill and her husband Dana have two daughters and three grandchildren.
