Southern Cross

Janet Faulk is a native of southeast Alabama and has lived most of her adult life in the Acadiana region of South Louisiana, where she currently lives with her husband Rudy Gonzales. Southern Cross is her first historical fiction and it is the story of a group of southerners who in 1866 leave by ship for Brazil from Baltimore immediately after the Civil War. Kate Teal, an atypical woman for the time, joins the group to start a new life. John Foster, a conventionalist, scouts the hinterlands of Brazil for a place to establish a farm or lumbering enterprise and a place to settle his family. The story follows Kate and John as a myriad of personalities move through their lives. Descriptions of the countryside and international diversity of people who settled there provide a fascinating account of Brazil during the time. The novel includes romance, adventure and historical accounts of life in the deep south and in Brazil after the Civil War in the US. Her previous two books are collections of personal essays—The Road Home, (2009) and Porch Posts (2014) written with Diane Marquart Moore.