A forty-year-old farmer puts up a new fence along the road bordering his dairy. A school bus goes by. There is a beautiful, gifted junior on that bus. As the bus passes, the farmer looks up and sees the beautiful junior. And she sees him.
So begins a hopeful yet controversial drama of deep love and affection, followed by harrowing tragedy, set in the late Twentieth Century American South.
It is inevitable that the junior, Sandy, and the farmer, Will, through happenstance and Fate, come to believe that their lives have become numbingly dull.
Sandy spends her time away from school, taking care of her mother, Odell. Odell was rendered invalid by the same car accident that killed her husband and Sandy’s father. Sandy gets no help from her older brothers to take care of Odell. Sandy is on the verge of losing her sanity.
Will has survived a marital engagement, which was broken off by a woman who thought herself above him. She didn’t want to spend her life on Will’s farm. Since then, Will has rarely left his farm.
At this confluence of events, these troubled, yearning souls decide to escape, by driving late into the night, and as far as Will’s car can take them.
With Sandy’s disappearance, her mother, Odell, undergoes a stunning turnaround. Odell’s health sees an upsurge. She rises to the occasion and sets about to find her lost girl.
Meanwhile, Sandy and Will have made their getaway complete. Arriving on a Florida beach, the two wayward spirits proceed to make friends with the locals. In so doing, Sandy and Will grow closer. One crush elevates the other, as they dance a romantic interlude beneath the stars.
As Sandy and Will come to understand each other, they also realize that they can’t stay on this beach forever. Ultimately, they must return and face the terms of the town.
When Sandy and Will get back, the small town is determined and unkind to their love. Odell and the legal system separate them. Sandy and Will are forced to spend their time apart.
A few years later, however, Sandy and Will are reunited. They take up their relationship anew, unfettered by the judgments of the law and the community. Sadly, their love is not long lived. Sandy, at last, becomes a tragic figure and Will is the poet who must remain behind to sing her song.
In HER EYES, LIKE DIAMONDS, author Lannie Hill explores the intimate feelings of two desirous spirits in a passionate resolution to follow their hearts in this rural Southern love story.