Dale Marie Taylor writes historical fiction and romance.
For a more detailed description of Dale Marie’s work, see https://daletaylorbooks.com
Finalist in the Next Generation indie book awards category for african-american fiction
The Music They Made is a sweeping historical novel inspired by the true lives of Edward and Carrie Crawford Smith.
In 1898, Edward leaves home for Cuba during the Spanish-American War — and vanishes into a world of war, betrayal, and forgotten memories. Believed lost to the life he once knew, he is pulled deeper into foreign conflicts while Carrie waits, holding fast to the love they promised one another.
Years later, fate draws them back together in Chicago during the Great Migration, where thousands of African American families search for safety, opportunity, and dignity. Through war, separation, injustice, and hardship, Edward and Carrie build a life shaped by music, resilience, and fierce determination.
A story of enduring love, quiet courage, and the strength to begin again, The Music They Made honors the voices of those who carried hope north — and the music that carried them through.
Dale Marie Taylor has written five historical fiction novels — A Home for Easter, Hester’s Journey , For the Love of Minnie (Apple Hill Series) and Carrie’s Song and The Music They Made (Flight of the Heart Series). Carrie’s Song, finalist in African American fiction for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, features a 19-year-old African-American woman who is torn between her desire to graduate from Fisk University in the late 1890s and her wish to be of service in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Add to that her passionate attachment to Edward, and one can see why Carrie’s life is full of choices. She is an accomplished pianist and is keen to develop her skills in an ever changing musical landscape. She finds Edward intriguing because of his skill as a violinist and his equally astute appreciation and study of music. The two live in the post reconstruction era of the United States, when the lynching of Blacks was an ever-present fear. Carrie serves her community by teaching, but also by playing the piano. When Edward is called away for the Spanish American War, Carrie finds herself at an emotional crossroads. The book can be found at Amazon.com and several e-book outlets.
A Home for Easter, Hester’s Journey and For the Love of Minnie are part of the Apple Hill Series. A Home for Easter features Easter, an 1830s Cherokee woman who finds herself searching for a new home during the “Indian Removal” period of the United States. The time is fraught with war, thwarted negotiations and the ultimate removal of many First Nations people to reservations in Oklahoma and elsewhere in the United States. Find the book at Amazon.com and several other ebook outlets.
Hester’s Journey is the second in the Apple Hill series and features Easter’s daughter, Hester, who wants to help her uncle Wahali during the carnage of the Battle of Gettysburg. She is determined to put to use the healing arts that she has learned from her mother, Easter. But by leaving home she must make a choice. Will she marry Austin, who is himself a formidable fighter during the Civil War? Or will she move to New York and become a nurse in her uncle’s medical practice? Hester’s Journey is full of of adventure for not only Hester, but her Aunt Awinta, a Black Cherokee woman who played a pivitol role in A Home for Easter. The story explains how North America became what it is today. Find the book at Amazon.com and several ebook outlets.
Dale Marie Taylor has written ten novels and novellas. She holds a doctoral degree in literary studies and masters degrees in journalism and English literature. She wrote for Texas daily newspapers for several years before teaching composition and literature at a Texas college. She and her husband enjoy hiking and gardening. They have one adult son and make their home on the East Coast of the United States.
A Home For Easter features a Cherokee woman who is searching for a new home as the Indian Removal Policy begins in the 1830s. Her ancestral lands have been taken and she is desperate to find a home. This is book One in the apple Hill series.
Easter’s daughter, Hester, serves in the U.S. Civil War as a healer. she encounters other noted healers of the Civil War era while her aunt Awinta dresses as a man to fight in the civil war. This is book two in the apple hill series.
Minnie is torn between her love for James, a white man, and her need for respectability. She lives with hope during the Gilded Age (1870s-1890s) and the Progressive era (1890s-1910s). However, she and James as well as henry, the mixed race man with whom she forms an attachment, must navigate the dangerous Jim Crow society of Tennessee.