A gripping retelling of the Battle of Blair Mountain. Told through the eyes of a coal camp doctor and his young son, this novel personalizes the largest labor uprising in American history. After years of contention between coal miners and companies, armed conflict erupted in 1921. A multi-racial collection of 10,000 coal miners and labor supporters faced 3,000 lawmen and union busters and, eventually, the US Army. Populated by real-life figures such as Mother Jones and Smiling Sid Hatfield, this winner of the Southern Book Prize explores the lengths to which people will go to in the desperate pursuit of survival on one side and unchecked greed on the other.
Winner of the Southern Book Prize for Fiction An NPR Best Book of 2024 An Atlanta Journal-Constitution Best Southern Book of 2024 Co-winner of the 2024 Weatherford Award in Fiction Audie Award for Best Fiction
A historical drama based on the Battle of Blair Mountain, pitting a multi-ethnic army of 10,000 coal miners against mine owners, state militia, and the United States government in the largest labor uprising in American history.
Rednecks is a tour de force, big canvas historical novel that dramatizes the 1920 to 1921 events of the West Virginia Mine Wars―from the Matewan Massacre through the Battle…
Joslin’s title comes from the Gettysburg Address, in which, standing before a blood-stained Gettysburg field, Abraham Lincoln extolled the virtues of those men who had given the “last full measure of devotion,” to the war effort. The devotion in this novel is that of a mother for her son. When Susannah, the daughter of an abolitionist, mother to a Confederate soldier, receives word that her son has been gravely wounded, she travels from South Carolina to Tennessee to tend to his wounds. This is a heart-breaking story well-told that explores the forgotten history of the Civil War homefront and the devotion and pain of parenting, both then and now.
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the American Civil War, this intricately woven novel delves into the life of Susannah Shelburne, a thirty-six-year-old woman residing in South Carolina with her older husband, Jacob. Their son, Francis, defies his parents' wishes by enlisting in the Confederate army, sparking bitter familial discord. In October 1863, devastating news arrives: Francis has been critically wounded near Chattanooga, Tennessee. Susannah embarks on a perilous journey to bring her son home, finding Francis delirious with fever and haunted by the horrors of battle. Their reunion is overshadowed by the conflicts at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge,…
Melora Fern’s debut novel tells an unconventional coming of age story against the backdrop of a nation doing the same. Set in the Chautauqua circuit of the 1920s, Whistling Women and Crowing Hens is immersive and moving. A whistler when it was uncommon for women to do so, Birdie Stauffer finds herself having to choose between following her truth and disappointing the most important people in her life. Fern’s attention to detail and a cast of unforgettable characters make this book hard to put down. At times raucous, tragic, and uplifting, this book is about finding one’s voice and singing (or whistling) it loud.
To escape her strait-laced overbearing sister, Birdie Stauffer auditions for the all-female Versatile Quintet, Chautauqua circuit's opening act. Through this train-traveling roadshow she experiences the tumultuous 1920s, a modern era of shocking flappers and smuggled whiskey, with the camaraderie of newfound friends. Her exceptional gift of concert whistling entertains more than songbirds as she gains national notoriety and she's soon entangled in two romantic relationships—one with a dapper circuit manager, the other her fellow pianist. Accompanied by four other musicians—a slang slinging flapper, a confident girl-next-door, a tight-lipped loner, and a virtuoso sapphic—and following a series of traumatic events, Birdie…
When a college professor inherits a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina, she must contend with the ghosts of her past. The discovery of a boy’s journal lures Caroline McAlister into the depths of a century-old murder and toward a past she thought she had long ago escaped. Her voice tangles with Carson Quinn’s in the laurel hell of a hollow they haunt a century apart, sharing hard lessons about love and loss.
