The Angel's Share

By Darren Shell

Is stealing REALLY stealing when no one knows the product is actually missing? If a product loses content as it ages, does the final product make any difference if slightly lessoned by nature ... or by the sneaky hand of man?
Angel’s Share is what all whiskey and wine dealers consider to be “product lost” during the production of the drink itself. It’s nothing more than what was lost during the creation of the product. It’s what we can’t account for with real reason.

It’s also what created me a livelihood.
Old man Stockham should have listened more closely to his own words when he taught me about “The Angel’s Share”. If so, he might have known I was taking my share of his business ... the Angel’s Share.

But his daughter was my downfall at heart.
She ... my Angel ... and the beautiful river boat “The Delta Queen” were the two loves of my life. And somehow that disgusting pig, James Stockham, managed to inadvertently provide me with both.

Two wonderful creations ...

Darren Shell creates just one more romantic love story to enchant us all. His golden way with words swirls us back in time to the steamboat era of America. This story touches base with every heart that longs for a warm love story. THIS ... this story is wonderful.
— James Mitchell, Mitchell Media.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fideli Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781604145199

Darren Shell

Darren Shell started writing in the spring of 2005. His first effort was a simple story about Dale Hollow Lake for his daughter, who was then ten years old. “It was crude and simple, but heart-felt and tender,” Shell says. “It was a ghost tale about the making of Dale Hollow Lake and how they had to dig up old graveyards during the construction.” Several people ended up reading this first effort, and many more began asking for copies. Because this first story was so well received, Shell wrote a prequel to accompany it. The reception for this writing was as popular as the first. Building on that success, Shell wrote six additional short stories that all fit into the first. These were eventually combined into a comb-bound book he printed himself and then sold. This book was also published in perfect-bound form, but is now out of print. “To this day, I still get requests for that book,” Shell says. “I’ve sold more than 500 copies, and occasionally I still find the need to print one from my computer for a friend or family member.” After this success, Shell broadened his scope by writing a series of historical stories for local newspapers. This collection was then published in book form titled Stories From Dale Hollow, and sold close to one thousand copies. These stories prompted Shell to start his company, Gravedigger Tours. Each season, he gives guided “ghost” tours of the park in the center of Dale Hollow. “It’s a historical tour,” Shell says, “and my character, one of the lake’s old gravediggers from 1942 when the lake was made, tells all the tales. It’s a crowd favorite and has earned me the nickname ‘Gravedigger.’” In the fall, a full-fledged set of tours are set up and tourists and friends come from miles around to hear the Gravedigger’s storytelling. This is also a great time for Shell to sell copies of his books. Shell’s latest work, The Big Ones—The World Record Smallmouth Bass of Dale Hollow Lake, deals with a different type of lake history. The book tells of the controversy surrounding the number-one world record smallmouth bass, profiles the number two and three record holders, gives the reader a glimpse of the men behind the those catches and includes several fishing experts’ top 10 tips for catching smallmouth bass. Shell has also set aside 50 signed copies of the book for charity. Dubbed “Fishing For Charity,” Shell’s goal is to donate a total of $5,000 in charitable funds to charities chosen by the people buying the special books. Darren Shell lives and works at his family-run marina on Dale Hollow Lake in middle Tennessee.

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TheAngel’s Share

By

Darren Shell

Smashwords ebook published by Fideli Publishing Inc.

Copyright 2013, Darren Shell

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ISBN:

Chapter One

June 5, 2009

Chattanooga, Tennessee

She’s a time machine, really. She truly is. I’m fully aware of this date and time, but I feel exactly like I did decades ago when I first stepped aboard her gorgeous bow. Her golden wood still shines like sixty years ago. Her white-painted railings are still perfectly kept. Even the antique life-preservers are immaculately well-cared-for, just like they were in 1949. Yes, she’s a time capsule for all to see. God, what a wonderful machine she is. I love her—I love her like no vessel that ever cast a line from shore.

The Delta Queen. She seduces my heart.

Today, much like the days of my early youth, I feel that same pang of love/lust for this old river ship. As my feet step from ramp to deck, again I feel exactly the same way I did back then. I feel changed. I feel twisted into a form even older than my seventy-six years. My time machine Queen has once again thrust me back in time, taking me to that special place—that wonderful time during late 1940’s when such a boat would have been ritzy and fun, but not out of the ordinary. She would have been vibrant and quaint, strong and beautiful—but not out of time-line.

Today, she is very much out of time-line. She’s a delicious piece of our forgotten past. She’s a ghost of yesteryear still clinging on for dear life. She’s so strangely beautiful—those tiny ripples of Tennessee River current lapping at her side. She is a snapshot of history … a snippet of a perfect time in our American past, when entrepreneurs bought and sold grand ideas in America’s time of big boom. She was a product of those old river towns along America’s coastline, shuttling goods and people from place to place with a class of brilliance like none other. Yeah, she’s perfect, my Delta Queen.

Again I feel like I’ve stepped into the roaring twenties, or perhaps even the thirties or forties. But no way