Coal miner Joshua Morgan managed to do the impossible-he broke away from the stranglehold of the iron-fisted Barton family and the Company Store, to whom all the miners in the Appalachian Mountains are indebted. But it cost him the life of his young daughter, who was run down by a posse led by Thomas Barton while coming to collect Joshua's payment to the store.

When Gap Creek was published in 1999, it became an instant national best seller. Set in the Appalachian South, it followed Julie and Hank Richards as they struggled through the first year and a half of their union. But what of the years following? What did the future hold for these memorable characters? The Road to Gap Creek answers those questions, as Robert Morgan takes us back into the lives of Julie and Hank as well as their children, seen through the eyes of their youngest daughter, Annie.

Lochiel Ogle was born with a red-wine birthmark—and it put her life in jeopardy from the moment she entered the world. Mountain folks called it "the mark of the devil," and for all the evil that has plagued her nineteen-year existence, Lochiel is ready to believe that is true. And the evil surely took control of the mind of the boy who stole her as an infant, bringing her home for his mother to raise.

In 1988, Sloan Hadfield's brother Ridge went fishing with their father and never came home. Their father was arrested and charged with murder. Ridge's body was never recovered, and Sloan's mother slowly descended into madness, insisting her son was still alive. Now, twenty years later, Sloan's life is unraveling. In the middle of a bitter divorce, she's forced to return to her rural Texas hometown when her mother is discharged from a mental health facility. Overwhelmed by memories and unanswered questions, Sloan returns to the last place her brother was seen all those years ago.

What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia is a frank assessment of America's recent fascination with the people and problems of the region. The audiobook analyzes trends in contemporary writing on Appalachia, presents a brief history of Appalachia with an eye toward unpacking Appalachian stereotypes, and provides examples of writing, art, and policy created by Appalachians as opposed to for Appalachians. The audiobook offers a much-needed insider's perspective on the region.

Mack Anders will do anything for his wife, Daisy. Even die. With the woman he loves fading away from Alzheimer’s, Mack fakes his own passing. The insurance makes certain that Daisy will be taken care of with dignity and comfort until the end. In a lonesome cabin in the Wyoming wilderness, he lives off the grid with nothing but thoughts of the past to keep him company and the belief that Daisy is better off without him.

Mercy Roller knows her name is a lie: there has never been any mercy in her life. Raised by a twisted and abusive father who called himself the Pastor, she was abandoned by the church community that should have stood together to protect her from his evil. Her mother, consumed by her own fear and hate, won't stand her ground to save Mercy either.

Spending summer away from home for the first time, fifteen-year-old Wren Pritchard and her younger sister, Sylvie, arrive at Five Oaks, their grandparents’ Arkansas lake house. As it was for their grandmother and mother before them, it’s a place for coming of age, first love, triumphs and failures, and keeping secrets. This year, it’s Wren’s end-of-girlhood season. And Sylvie vows to keep all her secrets: Wren slipping away in the middle of the night, the boy on the dock, racing with him on the dark back roads, and slipping quietly into bed before dawn, carrying the scent of adventure.

The folks in the Kentucky Appalachians are scraping by. Coal mining and hardscrabble know-how are a way of life for these isolated people. But when Amanda Rye, a young widowed mother and traveling packhorse librarian, comes through a mountain community hit hard by the nation’s economic collapse, she brings with her hope, courage, and apple pie.

For nearly thirty years, Nell has kept a childhood promise to never reveal what she and Evie found tucked inside a copy of Jane Eyre in their mother's bookcase—a record of Evie's birth naming a stranger as her mother. But lately, Nell has been haunted by hazy memories of their early life in Mississippi, years their reclusive mother, Hazel, has kept shrouded in secrecy.

1970s, Southern Alabama. Sixty-two-year-old Jeremiah Lewis Taylor, or “Nub,” has spent his whole life listening to those he loves tell him he’s no good—first his ex-wife, now his always-disapproving daughter. Sure, his escapades have made him, along with his cousin and perennial sidekick, Benny, just a smidge too familiar with small-town law enforcement, but he’s never harmed anyone—except perhaps himself.

Untrue things are rumored of May Rose, but it's true she's too pretty for her own good. Her husband has disappeared, and now she's on her own in a rough town ruled by one of the lumber companies logging the last of West Virginia's virgin forest. The year is 1899, and a woman alone has few options.

A collection of short stories by Sean Dietrich, (also known as "Sean of the South") a writer, humorist, and novelist, known for his commentary on life in the American South. His humor, columns, and short stories appear in various publications throughout the Southeast.

Maggie McCoury, a generational healer woman, relies on family traditions, folklore, and beliefs gleaned from a local Cherokee tribe. Her daughter, Carrie Ann, believes her university training holds the answers. As they clash over the use of roots, herbs, and a dash of mountain magic versus the medicine available in the town’s apothecary, Josie Mae doesn’t know whom to follow. But what happens when neither family traditions nor science can save the ones you love most?

It's 1957, and tobacco is king. Wealthy landowner Gordon Talmadge enjoys the lavish lifestyle he inherited but doesn't like getting his hands dirty; he leaves that to the two sharecroppers - one white, one Black - who farm his tobacco but have bigger dreams for their own children. While Gordon takes no interest in the lives of his tenant farmers, a brutal attack between his son and the sharecropper children sets off a chain of events that leaves no one unscathed. Over the span of a decade, Gordon struggles to hold on to his family's legacy as the old order makes way for a New South.

What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia is a frank assessment of America's recent fascination with the people and problems of the region. The audiobook analyzes trends in contemporary writing on Appalachia, presents a brief history of Appalachia with an eye toward unpacking Appalachian stereotypes, and provides examples of writing, art, and policy created by Appalachians as opposed to for Appalachians. The audiobook offers a much-needed insider's perspective on the region.

For more than 20 years historians have expressed the critical need for a single-volume history of Appalachia in Virginia. Responding to this demand, the author of this text has woven together the various strands of the Appalachian experience into a sweeping whole.

Appalachia has played a complex and often contradictory role in the unfolding of American history. Created by urban journalists in the years following the Civil War, the idea of Appalachia provided a counterpoint to emerging definitions of progress. Early 20th-century critics of modernity saw the region as a remnant of frontier life, a reflection of simpler times that should be preserved and protected.

Bertie Jenkins has spent forty years serving as a midwife for her community in the Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. Out of all the mothers she’s tended, none affects her more than the young teenager who shows up on her doorstep, injured, afraid, and expecting, one warm June day in 1943. As Bertie and her four sisters tenderly nurture Songbird back to health, the bond between the childless midwife and the motherless teen grows strong. But soon Songbird is forced to make a heartbreaking decision that will tear this little family apart.

Appalachia - among the most storied and yet least understood regions in America - has long been associated with poverty and backwardness. But how did this image arise, and what exactly does it mean? In Ramp Hollow, Steven Stoll launches an original investigation into the history of Appalachia and its place in US history, with a special emphasis on how generations of its inhabitants lived, worked, survived, and depended on natural resources held in common.

Coal miner Joshua Morgan managed to do the impossible-he broke away from the stranglehold of the iron-fisted Barton family and the Company Store, to whom all the miners in the Appalachian Mountains are indebted. But it cost him the life of his young daughter, who was run down by a posse led by Thomas Barton while coming to collect Joshua's payment to the store.

The parallels to the present are ominous: an international pandemic killing nearly 700,000 Americans, followed by a booming stock markets and political turmoil….then years of unimaginable misery for so many – an era so difficult and challenging that it became known as The Great Depression….SOUND FAMILIAR? CAN HISTORY REPEAT? They Never Threw Anything Away provides an entertaining, informative, but all-too-plausible comparison of then and now from memories of 22 Americans who lived through The Great Depression. In their own words they tell of experiences gained while living during the ...

In The Way of the Hermit, Ken shares the remarkable story of his life for the very first time. Told with humor and compassion, his unique insights allow us to glimpse the awe and wonder of a life lived in nature and offer wisdom on how each of us can escape the pressures and stresses of modern life.

After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong "hill women" who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region - an uplifting and eye-opening memoir for fans of Hillbilly Elegy and Educated.

Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth - one that compels her to seek comfort in food.

Before the Swallows Come Back is a story of love, found family, and redemption that will break your heart and have it soaring time and time again as you sit on the edge of your seat desperately hoping.

In a North Carolina mountain town filled with moonshine and rotten husbands, Sadie Blue is only the latest girl to face a dead-end future at the mercy of a dangerous drunk. She's been married to Roy Tupkin for 15 days, and she knows now that she should have listened to the folks who said he was trouble. But when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for everyone in town, Sadie begins to think there might be more to life than being Roy's wife.

Seven years ago, a hidden betrayal scattered three young friends living in the shadow of the great Vanderbilt mansion. Now, when Biltmore Industries master weaver Lorna Blankenship is commissioned to create an original design for Cornelia Vanderbilt’s 1924 wedding, she panics knowing she doesn’t have the creativity needed. But there’s an elusive artisan in the Blue Ridge Mountains who could save her—if only she knew where to begin.

In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good.

In a bid to outrun her past, Carrie Ballentyne accepts a nursing position with a doctor in the New Mexico Territory. She knows the journey from New York to Santa Fe will not be easy, but she relishes the adventure. However, nothing could have prepared her for the wilderness she encounters. Its vastness and power are awe-inspiring, stunning in both beauty and brutality. To endure, she must learn to rely on her fellow travelers—and one enigmatic man in particular. As the small, tight-knit group tackles challenge after challenge, she feels her heart opening to this rugged land.