Morning for Sokroshera Home

By Timothy Smith, 2020

Morning for Sokroshera Home Page

Tim’s novel of Russian America (Kodiak Island Area)

This page has links to a downloadable version of my new novel, about a fictional village on an island in Marmot Bay, based heavily on the experiences of my childhood in Ouzinkie. My purpose was to share what village life was like in the days before fiber, phones, and ferry service.

Set in the school year of 1963-1964, the village experiences the Tidal Wave, but the young characters also help to solve a mystery dating back to the 1830’s, right after the death of Saint Herman, and involving the murder of a Monk, one of the former orphans raised by Saint Herman. There’s also a World War II back story.

My brother Kelly commented, “Not everyone will ‘get’ this novel, but those you wrote it for are going to love it!”

As a reader who was also raised in the village commented, “You’ve really captured the flavor of village life.” I certainly hope so!

Oh, and one or two more little things: as a totally in-house production, a few typos and boo-boos are invariably still in the text. And my way of handling multiple talkers in one paragraph allows for a faster pace in the conversations, and hopefully isn’t confusing. But my spellings, and how I replicate local speech, are all explained in the preface. Finally, the previews from each chapter are designed NOT to have too many plot give-away’s.

The Downloadable Chapters:

Each page below links to a .pdf for each chapter.

My simple cover art, depicting a mystery across generations, with a stormy and sinister past, and a bright new future (simplified symbolism from the novel). The novel also has a few other line drawings I did to help to explain the places and events. “J. J. Hansen” is the name of my main character, and in the novel I’m helping him tell his story.

More simple line drawings, illustrating the fictional “Pacific Endeavor Seafoods” of Sokroshera Cove, Alaska (top) and a local home with a “kellydoor” side entrance and brown “brick” tarpaper siding, plus one of three vehicles in the village, a WWII Jeep.

Chapter Zero: The Preface – explains how the novel came to be – and Prologue (the story begins here)