Histria Books is pleased to announce the release of The Cost of Sin: Borne by the Innocent by Toni Bellon. This novel is published by Histria Fiction, an imprint of Histria Books dedicated to outstanding original works of fiction.
In 1975, Luke arrives in rural Utah to meet the grandmother whose approval may decide whether he can marry Sally. Instead, he is drawn into Myrtle’s unruly family history, beginning in 1905, when a sharp-eyed girl learns that love, safety, and belonging can be taken away by the people who claim to protect them.
Told through Myrtle’s vivid, unsentimental voice, The Cost of Sin brings a child’s fierce logic to a world ruled by poverty, religious judgment, family secrets, and adult hypocrisy. Myrtle notices everything: the comfort of homemade noodles, the menace behind a neighbor’s smile, the river that feels like a friend, and the small rebellions that keep her going. Funny, strange, and devastating in equal measure, this is historical fiction with dirt under its nails and a child narrator readers will follow anywhere. It asks who gets to define sin, who pays for it, and what survives when a family’s official story is not the truth.
Toni Bellon is a retired Assistant Dean of Education at the University of North Georgia whose career in elementary and middle-level education was shaped by a commitment to helping young people navigate uneven power dynamics. She turned to writing as a source of catharsis while caring for her mother, who lived with alcoholism, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease, and now brings compassion, wit, and an offbeat perspective to her work. Guided by her grandmother’s advice that “the truth is like taffy…the more you pull it, the more interesting it becomes,” Bellon writes with the hope of offering readers both insight and a laugh or two. Having lived in nine states, she now calls Atlanta, Georgia, home, where she is a member of the Atlanta Writers Club and several critique groups. Of all her titles, “Grandma” remains her favorite.
