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HALF MOON, FULL HEART
"The Little Blue Book"
©2007 Gene Cartwright

"And they danced. Bathed in the soft glow of a half moon, they danced.David Joe held Jessie Marie as close as he knew how—as close as he dared, and they danced. He held her so close he felt their hearts beating in unison like a lovers' duet, and they danced. They danced to every song that followed; until the battery in the small transistor radio grew weak, and the melodic sounds of The 'Platters' faded. And even after the radio fell silent, and the night grew old, they danced."

                                                 — A night to remember, in a story you will never forget.
a novel
 

252 pages, 55,345 wds
© 2003 Gene Cartwright - Foreword

 

Once upon a time, it was 1955. Eisenhower ('Ike') was President; a stamp cost three cents; gas was twenty-three; Popsicles came two to a package; Elvis was twenty, and against all odds, young David Joe Fallon, Jr. and Jessie Marie Taylor were in love. The End.

And the story may well have ended there, were it not for what happened to those two. It has been said, few younger than twenty or so could possibly know true love.

   That may be true for most, but not for Jessie Marie and David Joe, both of whom lived in Rosedale—a small, north-central Texas town—back in the 1950s.

   First taken with each other at age nine, these love-struck youngsters would grow to profess a love so deep, in their hearts and minds it transcended life itself.
   And despite Cyrus Ecclesiastes Taylor's success in keeping his daughter and David Joe apart, there was never any doubt these two lived and breathed each other. Not much else mattered to them.

Taylor's actions, born of his intense hatred for David Joe's father, only steeled the young lovers' vows to love and cherish each other forever.

Theirs was a love cloaked with an aura of destiny; imbued with an air of inevitability. Most everyone in Rosedale knew that to be fact. What they sacrificed and suffered, to nurture their uncommon love, accounts for their indelible place in the hearts of all who know their story.

And there could only have been one Jessie Marie and David Joe. Townsfolk, who were alive then, still speak of them in mythical tones. No true love story can rightly be told without the mention of their names, and the storybook lives they shared.

Despite the heartbreak, joy and sadness that was and is their story, David Joe and Jessie Marie live on. And nearly fifty years later, the world beyond their part of Texas may never have known of, and been inspired by them, except for unforeseen events in Rachel Marin's shattered life, half a country and nearly half a century away, in southern California.

Chapter 1 Excerpt