Every Bone a Prayer


Book Description

"Blooms has taken the voice and names of Appalachia, tended, and evolved them, and created a book that is at once haunting and hopeful."—NPR Praised by BuzzFeed, Good Housekeeping, POPSUGAR, Bustle, and more! Misty's holler looks like any of the thousands of hollers that fork through the Appalachian Mountains. But Misty knows her home is different. She may be only ten, but she hears things. Even the crawdads in the creek have something to say, if you listen. All that Misty's sister Penny wants to talk about are the strange objects that start appearing outside their trailer. The grown-ups mutter about sins and punishment, but that doesn't scare Misty. Not like the hurtful thing that's been happening to her, the hurtful thing that is becoming part of her. Ever since her neighbor William cornered her in the barn, she must figure out how to get back to the Misty she was before—the Misty who wasn't afraid to listen. This is the story of one tough-as-nails girl whose choices are few but whose fight is boundless, as her coping becomes a battle cry for everyone around her. Perfect for fans of Southern coming-of-age stories like Where the Crawdads Sing and If The Creek Don't Rise, Every Bone a Prayer is a beautifully honest exploration of healing and of hope. Praise for Every Bone a Prayer: "Haunting and healing, Every Bone A Prayer is a powerful debut that will leave its mark on readers' hearts."—Kim Michele Richardson, New York Times bestselling author of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek "This is a book and a writer I highly recommend."—Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard out of Carolina "This is the kind of book we need to set literary expectations for a new decade. It's so textured, so layered with love and so wonderfully terrifying, intimate and magical."—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir "Searing and soothing, honest and elusive, Every Bone a Prayer is a gift. It's the pure truth, told slant."—Alix E. Harrow, author of The Once and Future Witches




Clay's Quilt


Book Description

On a bone-chilling New Year's Day, when all the mountain roads are slick with ice, Clay's mother, Anneth, insists on leaving her husband. She packs her things, and with three-year-old Clay in tow, they inch their way toward her hometown along the treacherous mountain roads. That journey ends in the death of Clay's mother. It's a day that comes to haunt her only son, who's left without a family and a history. This is the story of how Clay Sizemore, a coal miner in love with his town but unsure of his place within it, finds a family to call his own. And it's the story of the people who become part of the life he shapes: Aunt Easter, always filled with a sense of foreboding and bound to her faith above all; Uncle Paul, quietly producing quilt after quilt; Dreama, beautiful and flighty; Evangeline, the untameable daughter of a famous gospel singer; and Alma, the fiddler whose song wends its way into Clay's heart. Together, they all help Clay to fashion a quilt of a life from what treasured pieces are around him. Authentic and moving, Clay's Quilt is both the story of a young man's journey and of Appalachian people struggling to hold on to their heritage.




Where I Can't Follow


Book Description

"Haunting and hopeful...a magic so vivid it feels more like a memory than a work of fiction."—Alix E. Harrow, New York Times bestselling author of The Once and Future Witches NAMED A MOST-ANTICIPATED BOOK BY Good Housekeeping, Gizmodo, Den of Geek, Tor.com, and more! Walk through the door and leave all your problems behind...but you don't know what's on the other side. And once you leave, you'll never come back. Will you go through? Maren Walker told herself she wouldn't need to sell pills for long, that it was only means to an end. But that end seems to be stretching as far away as the other side of Blackdamp County, Kentucky. There's always another bill for Granny's doctor, another problem with the car, another reason she's getting nowhere. She dreams of walking through her little door to leave it all behind. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. All anyone knows is that if you go, you'll never come back. Maren's mother left through her door when Maren was nine, and her shadow has followed Maren ever since. When she faces the possibility of escaping her struggles for good, Maren must choose just what kind of future she wants to build. From critically acclaimed author Ashley Blooms, Where I Can't Follow explores the forces that hold people in place, and how they adapt, survive, and struggle to love a place that doesn't always love them back.




Sanctuary


Book Description

NOW AN AMC+ TV SERIES—SANCTUARY: A WITCH'S TALE! "What would you get if you crossed Big Little Lies with 90s teen flick The Craft?...The answer is something like this addictive novel." —The Independent Sanctuary is the perfect town...to hide a secret. When young Daniel Whitman is killed at a high-school party, the community is ripped apart. The death of Sanctuary's star quarterback seems to be a tragic accident, but everyone knows his ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn is the daughter of a witch—and she was there when he died. Was Daniel's death an accident, revenge, or something even more sinister? As accusations fly, paranoia grips the town...and the town becomes no sanctuary at all. Twisty and compelling with a dash of Practical Magic, V.V. James's debut Sanctuary is a riveting tale of murder, witchcraft, and the dark side of small towns and the secrets kept within them.




Without a Prayer


Book Description

The horrifying true story of a fatal encounter inside the secluded Word of Life Christian Church, a parish-turned-cult in upstate New York. Teenager Lucas Leonard made shocking admissions in front of the altar—he’d practiced witchcraft and conspired to murder his parents, among other horrific crimes. The confessions earned him a brutal beating by a gang of angry church members, including his parents and sister. Lucas arrived at the hospital dead, awakening the sleepy community of Chadwicks, New York, to the horror that had been lurking next door. Nine members of Lucas’ church would eventually find themselves facing murder-related charges. But how did they get to that point? And what made Lucas confess? The full story has never been told—until now. Emmy-nominated journalist Susan Ashline delves deep into the Leonard family history, the darkness within the Word of Life Christian Church, and what led Lucas, his family, and his community to that fateful night.




The Map of Bones


Book Description

"Book Two in the critically acclaimed The Fire Sermon trilogy--The Hunger Games meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road in this richly imagined post-apocalyptic series by award-winning poet Francesca Haig. Four hundred years in the future, the Earth has turned primitive following a nuclear fire that has laid waste to civilization and nature. Though the radiation fallout has ended, for some unknowable reason every person is born with a twin. Of each pair, one is an Alpha--physically perfect in every way; and the other an Omega--burdened with deformity, small or large. With the Council ruling an apartheid-like society, Omegas are branded and ostracized while the Alphas have gathered the world's sparse resources for themselves. Though proclaiming their superiority, for all their effort, Alphas cannot escape one harsh fact: whenever one twin dies, so does the other. Cass is a rare Omega, one burdened with psychic foresight. While her twin, Zach, gains power on the Alpha Council, she dares to dream the most dangerous dream of all: equality. For daring to envision a world in which Alphas and Omegas live side-by-side as equals, both the Council and the Resistance have her in their sights"--




The Prayer of the Bone


Book Description

There seemed to be no other conclusion to draw: injuries to the young woman's face appeared to be consistent only with a mauling by a bear. So why did Calhoun stay on the case as if it were a manhunt? Maddie had been working as a field assistant on one of New England's most important early colonial sites-a place where French pioneers had settled and perished in 1604, and English Quakers followed in 1655, their fate a deeper mystery. For Jessica, sister of the deceased, arriving in Maine from Oxford it was a heartbreaking journey to collect the remains of the willful little sister she had watched over since their mother's death so many years before. Currently Maddie had traced their mother's Native American roots to this remote spot in Maine, and Jessica now also had to prise Maddie's daughter Freya away from the Souriquois reservation where she seemed to be transforming into a very different nine-year-old altogether. What Jessica finds in New England is a police investigation which is not only tracking bears and picking over 300-year-old settlers' bones, but also is soon to be finding its way through tribal traditions and shape-shifting shamans




Sugar Run


Book Description

“A shining debut, with a heady admixture of explosive plot and taut, burnished prose. This is a book that loves its wounded characters and troubled places, and in so deeply loving, it finds a terrible truth and beauty where other writers wouldn't have found the courage to look . . . Mesha Maren writes like a force of nature.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies On the far side the view was nothing but ridgelines, the craggy silhouettes rising up against the night sky like the body of some dormant god. Jodi felt her breath go tight in her chest. This road went only one way, it seemed, in under the mountains until you were circled. In 1989, Jodi McCarty is seventeen years old when she’s sentenced to life in prison for manslaughter. She’s released eighteen years later and finds herself at a Greyhound bus stop, reeling from the shock of unexpected freedom. Not yet able to return to her lost home in the Appalachian mountains, she goes searching for someone she left behind, but on the way, she meets and falls in love with Miranda, a troubled young mother. Together, they try to make a fresh start, but is that even possible in a town that refuses to change? Set within the charged insularity of rural West Virginia, Sugar Run is a searing and gritty debut about making a run for another life.




Close to the Bone


Book Description

Communication with those we love and with ourselves.




My Darkest Prayer


Book Description

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby’s debut novel My Darkest Prayer is republished in a new edition, with a new introduction from the author. “S.A. Cosby’s reissued debut thriller proves he was a master from the start...Cosby has in three books emerged as one of the genre’s best living practitioners...its reissue is a brilliant idea.” —Los Angeles Times “I handle the bodies.” Whether it's working at his cousin's funeral home or tossing around the local riffraff at his favorite bar, Nathan Waymaker is a man who knows how to handle the bodies. A former marine and sheriff's deputy, Nathan has built a reputation in his small Southern town as a man who can help when all other avenues have been exhausted. When a beloved local minister is found dead, his parishioners ask Nathan to make sure the death isn’t swept under the rug. What starts out as an easy payday soon descends into a maze of mayhem filled with wannabe gangsters, vicious crime lords, porn stars, crooked police officers, and a particularly treacherous preacher and his mysterious wife. Nathan must use all his varied skills and some of his wit to navigate the murky waters of small town corruption even as dark secrets of his own threaten to come to the surface. “[A] colorful tale of small-town corruption...[Cosby's] powerful storytelling skills shine through.” —Washington Post