Meet LeTresa Payne

LeTresa Payne always dreamed of becoming an author. She is the published author of six titles from three genres of Young Adult Historical Fiction, Urban Fiction, and Religious Self-Help. The titles of Daughter Cry No More, Secrets Within Her, Motions, Emotions, Prayer Warriors, and Her Lethal Desire can all be purchased on Amazon and Kindle. Born in Chicago, IL and raised in Ripley, TN, she began reading at the age of three years old and fell in love with fiction. She loved writing short stories and began creating fictional characters at the early age of five. All throughout grade school she wrote stories and allowed her classmates to read them. During her senior year of high school she decided that one day she would make her dream of becoming an author come true. LeTresa is a graduate of Austin Peay State University and the University of Memphis where she earned her master's degree.
 
Website: www.amazon.com/author/letresapayne
 
Book Blurb: Daughter Cry No More- As a young African American girl residing in rural Louisiana in the 1960s, Raine Jackson faces numerous challenges as she struggles to find love and inner peace within her own mind. As the young girl searches for love from her father who holds a grudge against her mother she wonders if she will ever live up to his standards and gain his affection. Jealously and rage engulfs her as she watches her father share his love with everyone but her. The young girl faces numerous issues with bullies, racist remarks, and self-doubt. A mysterious letter from an anonymous sender and visions with premonitions of the future embarks Raine on a heart thrilling quest to discover buried secrets about her family. Will she ever discover how to love herself and make sure her broken family becomes whole again?
 
About her book, Daughter Cry No More Synopsis- LeTresa Payne
 
The story begins with 12 years old, Raine Jackson, sitting on her grandmother’s porch in the countryside of a small Louisiana town in the early 1960s. She is plagued with troubling thoughts about being so dark skinned in a family full of light skinned, Creole individuals and living in a world haunted by the infamous Jackson curse that has been held over her mother’s family for a century. A storm is quickly approaching as she reminisces on better times in her life when her mother, Bianca, and father, Edward, were a couple and she was the apple of her father’s eye. Since the breakup of her parents, Raine and her mother, have been residing with Raine’s wicked grandmother, Grandma Rosie. As the rain begins to fall, Raine’s naturally long hair which has been pressed out starts to recoil and she knows that Grandma Rosie is going to whip her for messing her hair up.

Raine is teeming with jealously towards her little sister, China, who is her father’s child with a white lady he married after leaving Raine’s mother. Raine is hurt that her father decided to marry a white lady instead of her mother and she despises all of the attention and love that China receives from their father. When her sister falls ill, Raine suddenly has a change of heart towards her mistreatment of her sister.

Bianca, envious of Edward’s new relationship with his wife, plots to destroy their relationship. When Raine discovers her mother is sleeping around with her father, she tries to warn her stepmother before it’s too late. During this time period, racial inequality is at its peak and Raine begins to have vivid dreams and premonitions of white supremacists harming her father and family. She tries to warn her family of future troubles to come, but the only person who believes her is her new neighbor, Roger. One night as she sleeps, her mother’s oldest daughter, Natalie, appears to her in a dream. She informs Raine that she will inherit special powers of seeing beyond and into the future and that the Jackson Curse must be ended.
When Raine’s white stepmother turns up dead, trouble for their family only intensifies as Edward is arrested for her murder. Since Edward descends from a wealthy Creole family full of prestige, he posts bail and takes China with him as they move in with Raine and Bianca in a wealthy neighborhood. Bianca is pregnant with her third child, but will not name who the father is, although Grandma Rosie and Raine believe that it is Edward’s child.

Children at Raine’s school begin to bully her more about her dark skin color and the fact that there are rumors going around town that her father is a murderer. Raine becomes so distraught that she runs back to her Grandma Rosie’s house and discovers her mother’s diary which holds a surprising truth, Raine is not Edward’s child and her mother had been raped as a child by her father, Raine’s grandfather. When she returns home, she finds that her mother has gone into labor and is beaten by a drunken Edward.
Before her stepmother’s murder trial could begin, Edward is murdered by his wife’s racist family which causes Bianca to have a mental breakdown. She is confronted with her sins at Edward’s funeral before she commits suicide in front of the congregation leaving Raine an orphan. The story ends with Raine travelling by motor coach bus up North to escape her horrible past, but she carries with her a devastating secret that will rock the entire Jackson family and could possibly put an end to the Jackson Curse in the sequel, Secrets Within Her.