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The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest, narrative nonfiction by Bill Fentress

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The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest

THE YELLOW HONEYSUCKLE IS THE SWEETEST is a salute by the author to a lifetime of outdoor experiences in eastern North Carolina and beyond. It encompasses 14 true short stories about family, friendships, and the emotions involved in hunting, fishing, and other outdoor-related topics.

It is not a how-to book, nor just a compilation of hunting and fishing stories; it describes how simple family and personal interactions, with the outdoor sports and unmatched natural beauty as a backdrop, can result in treasured memories like perhaps no other pursuits.

If you hunt and fish, or grew up enjoying histories of family traditions and friendships revolving around the outdoors – whether it be in North Carolina, or elsewhere – THE YELLOW HONEYSUCKLE IS THE SWEETEST is for you.

To purchase The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest, click either of the following links:  Amazon | Goodreads

Genre: Sports, (as in Hunting and Fishing), Nature, Family, Memoir
Published by: Indie
Publication Date: February 3, 2022
Number of Pages: 257
ISBN: 979-8-9855598-1-1

Watch the book trailer by clicking the link here!

Guest Post by Bill Fentress

Autumn

When I was young, spring was my absolute favorite time of year. The weather turned warm, the grass started greening … the birds came out and started chirping. My washed and faded dungarees were stiff, sun- dried on a line, and fresh; they felt clean against my skin. My white t-shirt smelled of Tide, and breezy, revived air. I always liked the look of faded jeans, a plain white t- shirt, and white Chuck Taylor’s. It made me feel light, bouncy … strong and alive. Spring meant the pop of my catcher’s mitt and the knowledge that the wooden smacks of Little League baseball were right around the corner … keeping tempting companionship with the glorious end of school.

As I matured and the world of hunting and football seasons entered my southern soul, the fall began to edge out that warmer, vibrant season that preceded it by half a year. Green grass, daffodils, budding azaleas and singing robins perched on Grandmamma’s pecan trees, began to give way to yellow and orange leaves, the sharp popping of pads, the excitement of Friday nights, and smashed banners held by cute cheerleaders. Equally as important, was the yearly return of prepping bushytails cutting seed at the top of oaks, blackheads cupping up and swarming into decoys, the smell of gun oil, the familiar feel of leather boots with long laces…and locked up setter tails before the rise. By 14, I had been bitten by the cooler months…and their grasp on my soul was to never let go.

In the fall, the unsettled tropic air pushed by southeast winds up from the gulf stream, finally subsides. Its overbearing grip on our worrying minds is relinquished after another season of constantly checking the waves born off Africa. As the first chilly fronts of October sweep in, announcing that there is another year of reprieve, your inner spirit can breathe again. You rejoice in the cool gift. No more sweating just to get to the car; no more skeeters; no more mowing. Just get the beans and corn into the bins or hit that last sales goal…and then scout that big, 4-year-old buck sulking at the back of the farm. And check the fields for the first arrival of those white- feathered criers from the northern tundra. And get ready for the feasts of November and December.

Winter is for getting started on the new year’s sales goals, corporate meetings with the constant jockeying, and for setting the tone of another recommitment to the lifelong drudge of keeping pace. Spring is for renewed life, a brief indulgence heading into the quagmire of the steamy months. Summer deceives you. It teases you with a suntan but gives you a burn. It harkens with the promised frivolity of picnics and big fish. But then delivers a 130 MPH nightmare at its end. Fall, on the other hand, always delivers as promised. Beautiful earthy colors – red, yellow, and maroon signals of the land’s yearly participation in nature’s cycle. Fall is our mother’s last yell out the backdoor before the door is closed for good, and supper gets cold. Fall is for reflecting on what you’ve done, for relaxing just a tad. It’s for enjoying that 32- degree morning with your breath suspended in front of you while you try to hold that bow steady on the buck you only dreamed of during the summer mosquito molestation.

Fall is for temporarily reflecting on what you’ve done. It is for laying down your tools and admiring the work they’ve done, just as the oaks salute their vanquished leaves on the forest floor. We all know the spring will come and busyness will return. And we understand the moribund relaxation of the winter and its lazy Sundays is somewhere out there, like a hen wood duck’s call bouncing off the junipers in a bottomland swamp. But it’s not yet time to answer. Instead, it’s time for sitting back – in a deer stand, in a duck blind, with a friend by a fire – taking inventory of nature’s fortune around us.

Fall is time to be thankful for the past year. You know its fleeting. It won’t stay. The 50 -degree days will turn into dreary 39- degree routines, and the brilliant Carolina blue sky will turn to winter rain. Stiff spring dungarees and ironed white t-shirts turn to old man khakis and flannel shirts, and Aleve. Autumn is here, it’s time to subtly rejoice.

But it is also a time to reflect on the bygone seasons….and the years through that hourglass.

Excerpt from The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest       

There is something special about hunting, that sears in place our memories with others. Maybe it’s the vivid nature where our grand experiences take place or the team efforts we go through to make it all happen? Maybe it’s the getting up early, the black coffee, the smell of eggs and bacon in a cabin, the swoosh of ducks over decoys or the violent uprising of a big covey followed by the delirium of released bird dogs? Maybe it’s the sunrises, the sunsets, the gobbles at dawn, the split oak fires or the oysters? Maybe it’s the bonds we have over lifetimes? I’m not really sure.  But I do know we’re blessed when these partners come into our lives.

Like many boys, my first hunting partner was a dog, Pepper. I wish I could say Pepper was the granddaughter of King Rothschild’s Sire of Pepper Creek, but I cannot. Pepper was a fittingly, albeit not uniquely, named black and white pointer-mix stray who took up at Miss Jo’s house in Bayboro. Somehow, through either constant brow beating with her pathetic brown eyes or via her constant hanging around the back door looking for food, Pepper convinced Miss Jo to call me—not my mother, her friend—but me.

“Billy,” she commanded, “I have a beautiful dog you would just love!”

Of course, I immediately got off the phone and begged Mom to take me to Bayboro. “Miss Jo’s got a dog she says I need!” I always thought Miss Jo should have led many of the sales classes I attended in my banking career. Let me tell you, she talked directly to the buyer, and went right around the secretary. While I’m not sure how long it took for Mom to talk to her again,  we came home with Pepper in the Chevy wagon and me with a smile as broad as the cuff on my dungarees.

Pepper was one of the smartest dogs I ever owned. She followed me everywhere—from our store to Grandmamma’s house to the woods behind our house to the tractor shelter woods across the road, down Swan Point Road, and of course behind our neighbor’s house. Pepper was smart enough to look both ways before she crossed the road. Don’t smirk; I saw her do it a hundred times. She also knew how to be quiet as I planned a sneak-up strategy on the local robins and wrens. But her mind absolutely took the day off when it came to our neighbor’s chickens.

Bill Fentress —Author of The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest

Bill Fentress is a retired banker and current Finance Officer in eastern North Carolina.

A current resident of New Bern, NC, Bill grew up in Pamlico County, North Carolina, where many of his hunting and fishing experiences in The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest take place.

He has enjoyed nature’s beauty and God’s gifts of family and the outdoors throughout his lifetime, in North Carolina and elsewhere.

To learn more about Bill, click on any of the following links: BillFentress.com, Goodreads & Facebook – @billfentressauthor

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Author Giveaway

03/14 Guest post @ Novels Alive
03/15 Guest post @ The Book Divas Reads
03/17 Showcase @ Book Reviews & More by Kathy
03/18 Interview @ Mythical Books
03/22 Review @ sunny island breezes
03/23 Interview @ Quiet Fury Books
03/24 Review @ flightnurse70_book_reviews
03/26 Review @ Book Reviews From an Avid Reader
03/28 Showcase @ Silvers Reviews
03/29 Showcase @ Celticladys Reviews
03/30 Showcase @ Brooke Blogs
04/01 Review @ Lynchburg Reads
04/02 Review @ Elaine Sapp (FB)
04/03 Guest post @ Author Elena Taylors Blog
04/04 Review @ Pat Fayo Reviews
04/05 Interview @ A Blue Million Books
04/07 Review @ A Room Without Books is Empty

Elena Taylor is the author of All We Buried, available now in print, e-book, and audio book format at all your favorite bookstores and on-line retailers.

For more information on All We Buried, click on the link here to visit the home page.

Silver Falchion Award Finalist, Best Investigator 2020

Foreword INDIE Award Finalist, Best Mystery 2020