Valerie Fraser Luesse is our guest on Christian Historical Fiction Talk this week.

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Do you love the South and all things Southern? Or if you’re a northerner, are you enchanted by the South? Then you’ll want to take a trip to the Louisiana bayou with author Valerie Fraser Luesse. Her book, Under the Bayou Moon, is perfect for summer reading on your porch with a glass of sweet tea.

We enjoyed a lovely chat. She is the epitome of a Southern lady. Sit back a while and find out more about Valerie Fraser Luesse and Under the Bayou Moon.

Under the Bayou Moon by Valerie Fraser Luesse
Restless with the familiarity of her Alabama home, Ellie Fields accepts a teaching job in a tiny Louisiana town deep in bayou country. Though rightfully suspicious of outsiders, who have threatened both their language and their culture, most of the people in tiny Bernadette, Louisiana, come to appreciate the young and idealistic schoolteacher as a boon to the town. She’s soon teaching just about everyone–and coming up against opposition from both the school board and a politician with ulterior motives.

Acclimating to a whole new world, Ellie meets a lonely but intriguing Cajun fisherman named Raphe who introduces her to the legendary white alligator that haunts these waters. Raphe and Ellie have barely found their way to each other when a huge bounty is offered for the elusive gator, bringing about a shocking turn of events that will test their love and their will to right a terrible wrong.

A master of the Southern novel, Valerie Fraser Luesse invites you to enter the sultry swamps of Louisiana in a story that illuminates the struggle for the heart and soul of the bayou.

Get your copy of Under the Bayou Moon.

Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of Almost Home and the bestselling, Christy Award–winning Missing Isaac. Her third novel, The Key to Everything, was inspired by a true story. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is best known for her features and essays in Southern Living, where she is currently the senior travel editor.

Specializing in stories about unique pockets of Southern culture, she has published major pieces on the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on Hurricane Katrina recovery in Mississippi and Louisiana won the 2009 Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. The author lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband, Dave—and a mischievous orange cat named Cheeto.

Visit Valerie’s website.

If you aren’t a subscriber to my newsletter, please sign up. I have a very special giveaway and very Southern recipe from Valerie Fraser Luesse coming up in September. I’m not going to tell you what it is except to say that you don’t want to miss out on this!