Taylor Brown's Gods of Howl Mountain is a gritty, bootlegging, small town story of Korean War veteran Rory, grandson of the former town prostitute Granny May. Granny May is now the town's folk healer. As Rory begins to become infatuated with a snake handling preacher's daughter, Granny May is wary. Set in the North Carolina mountains, Brown's novel is atmospheric and lawless, if at times perhaps a bit overwritten. I enjoyed it though, and I will certainly pick up whatever he writes next.

5 stars!

I loved everything about this small town, backwoods, lawless, gritty, bootlegging story!

Rory has been raised by his grandmother, Granny May, ever since his mother was brutally attacked leaving her institutionalized and not able to speak a word. After returning from war, Rory joins his uncles bootlegging team making deliveries under the dark cover of night.

The characters were unforgettable - unique and deeply developed. Granny May, who has a potion or special tea to cure any ailment, was an outstanding character! I will never forget her. The relationship between Granny and Rory was the drawing force behind this story for me. It was what hooked me from the start and kept me invested to the last page.

The atmosphere was thick and palpable. I truly felt as though I was right there with the characters. The exquisite prose was detailed and beautiful. I was in awe of how powerfully this book conveyed its message.

Grit Lit at its best!

Audio rating: 5 stars! Narrator was outstanding. His voice is so smooth, soothing and comfortable - I could listen to this man speak forever. He did a phenomenal job with the characters voices and narration in general and truly enhanced the overall experience of this book. I think the voice of this narrator made this story even more impactful and enjoyable for me than if I had read it.

I read a lot of historical fiction. The majority of which is related to WWII and the Holocaust. I’ve recently ventured into other time periods so I was excited when I was given the opportunity to read this book on Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion.
I wanted so badly to love this book but I just couldn’t read into it. I’m a pretty picky reader and have been known on several occasions to stop reading a book it it does not grab my interest pretty early in. Although I never quite got into the storyline and I didn’t feel a personal connection to any of the characters, I did finish but it took quite some time.
The descriptions were beautiful, but a bit too much at times. Thank you for allowing me to read this book.

This one caught my interest because it was set in the North Carolina Mountains of the 1950s, with bootleg whiskey and snake handling preachers. What I loved about this book were the descriptions. Never in a million years would I have thought I could get into a book that spent so much time describing cars and how they executed sharp turns, but this book did it. It transported me to another place and time. There was a plot and things happened to the characters, but for me that was secondary to the atmosphere.

This novel is a bit of a paradox. It has some of the most vivid imagery I have ever read...even the most awful elements are described in incredible detail.. It is beautifully written, almost to the point of distraction. It is also dark and gritty, full of bootleggers, fast cars, sex, and snake handling religion all set in the mountains of North Carolina. And love is thrown in there too. I am not sure I loved the story, but I did love reading it. For me, it felt a bit like listening to someone with a British accent. I love to hear them talk. It doesn't really matter what they say. I wish I could have felt a stronger connection to the characters. There are some great possibilities provided, but they keep me an arms length away, never fully letting me care enough. This is my first book by this author, and I am intrigued enough to find another. Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing a digital ARC for review.

3.5 stars

This was a NetGalley offering from the good people of St. Martin's Press. I apologize for my tardy review.
I had some difficulty getting into this book and grasping its intent until around the 50% mark. The characters and plot got a bit lost in the mountain of words that another reviewer called "prominent descriptive prose." I love pretty words as much as the next guy, but I really felt they got in the way here.
And I do love gritty Apalachian settings even if all seem to focus on the same few themes: moonshine or whiskey running; illicit sex, whoring, raping, and bastard children; and a "Granny" character to whom everyone goes for potents and poultices. On Howl Mountain in the 1930s, two decades earlier, they had also had a flooding of the valley by the power company which proves integral to the plot.
Will definitely read more of this author and in fact have another galley coming up.

Taylor Brown's Gods of Howl Moutain explores the aftermath of a soldier who served in the Vietnam War and has lost his leg. Rory Docherty returns to the hills of his childhood and into the family business of bootlegging Moonshine. Rory and his Granny, a young, 54-year-old woman play slyly with the government who are always trying to take out the illegal moonshine business.

Mr. Brown has written a deeply entertaining, thought-provoking story that covers every sense imaginable. The characters are richly developed, so familiar that you might even know some of them in your own southern town. There is everything in this story- Romance, mystery, violence, the stuff of nightmares, and frivolity. I haven't read any other books by Taylor Brown but I will be doing so now.

Thanks, Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and Taylor Brown for the opportunity to read this book, get to know this author in lieu of my honest review.

The Gods of Howl Mountain ⭐️⭐️

Bootlegger Rory Docherty has returned home to the fabled mountain of his childhood - a misty wilderness that holds its secrets close and keeps the outside world at gunpoint. Slowed by a wooden leg and haunted by memories of the Korean War, Rory runs bootleg whiskey for a powerful mountain clan in a retro-fitted '40 Ford coupe. Between deliveries to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients, he lives with his formidable grandmother, evades federal agents, and stokes the wrath of a rival runner.

In the mill town at the foot of the mountains - a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing - Rory is bewitched by the mysterious daughter of a snake-handling preacher. His grandmother, Maybelline “Granny May” Docherty, opposes this match for her own reasons, believing that "some things are best left buried." A folk healer whose powers are rumored to rival those of a wood witch, she concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains while harboring an explosive secret about Rory’s mother - the truth behind her long confinement in a mental hospital, during which time she has not spoken one word. When Rory's life is threatened, Granny must decide whether to reveal what she knows...or protect her only grandson from the past.

Surprisingly I didn’t enjoy this book. I found it to be an very difficult read. Not sure if it was the subject matter or the writing style.

I received this ARC for free in exchange for my honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. Thank you NetGalley!

Gods of Howl Mountain is a dark and violent novel with a propulsive plot that carried me right to the end. With atmospheric and gritty prose, Brown tells a powerful story about life in 1950s North Carolina.

I requested this based on the serious buzz it received from my Goodreads friends - and pretty much immediately regretted this. It is just not my type of book at all. I made it a fair amount of pages in, but it just did not grab my interest. I struggle with historical novels at the best of times and this year more than ever. I do think I will just have to be honest with myself and finally realize that the genre does not work for me. The book is wonderfully written though and for a different reader I am sure it would work much better than for me

Disclaimer: this is not my type of book. And yet, because it's different, I tend to like the change. Only it didn't work this time.

3.5, because the writing gave me goosebumps but the plot not so much.

Rory has lost one leg during the war in Korea and now works as a bootlegger, distributing whiskey around Howl Mountain, while his grandmother is a fol healer, who's chosen to isolate herself fromt he community, especially after her daughter suffered from a trauma so great she's never spoken a word anymore. The many secrets of Howl Mountain seem about to overflow.

The story was gripping, I won't deny. As you may have seen from other reviews, the writing is also something else. It's almost poetic, which contributes to surrounding this book in an otherworldly atmosphere that makes it unique. It's not a read I'l forget anytime soon.

However, the plot twists, the happenings, the revelations, none of of it was that grand. Even the characters' motivations didn't seem that deep in the end of things. I'm not saying they were shallow, but it fell far from amazing. In other words, the effort it takes you to get used to the writing, to the grim atmosphere, to the twisted story didn't pay. I dare say it wasn't the style or the genre, the book itself was a little bland. I was so sure we were going toward something big, and it was only that. But this was still a beautiful journey.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

There are some things in this world that are so big, so raw, that they cannot be fully contained by mere words - no matter the language used. Sometimes I believe that real magic is in those incorporeal bits that float just on the fringes of human understanding. The pieces we cannot hammer down, no matter how hard we try.



These things are not beyond comprehension, just definition. People the world over always know these things when they experience them firsthand.



One of the most incredible things that Taylor Brown has done here is not attempted to tack down that which cannot be expressed by any combination or order of letters. Rather, the magic, the immense nature of these experiences is left to float freely through the book, and into the reader. One such example comes from Granny May. There are betrayals so severe, hurts so deep, rages that burn so hot, you have to experience or witness them firsthand to truly know what it's like. Taylor Brown has crafted each scene in "Gods of Howl Mountain" so expertly that in the span of a single page, the reader knows exactly how Granny May was feeling. Maybe I see a bit of how I would feel, were I in her shoes, but even if that is so, it only serves to bring the story more to life for me.



For a book so filled with hurt, despair, struggle, loss, confusion, and anger, it is, at times, unspeakably beautiful. In today's world of technology and instant access to all things desired, many of us have lost what used to be an innate understanding of just how big and wild the world truly is. Taylor Brown transports the reader back to a time that was wild and brutal and beautiful and so poised on the precipice of potential. A time where every forward step by a pioneer turned into a hundred new paths for others to follow. Living in the time that we do, we don't often think about the strength and bravery it took to forge those trails, or how damaged some of those pioneers were in their efforts.



Reading about Rory and Eli and Granny May and Kingman and Cooley, Eustace, Christine, Adderholt, and all the rest was an incredible journey. Taylor Brown is an author who transports readers. This book is a gift of past, of perspective, and of courage and hope. I am so pleased to have read it.

I loved Brown's Fallen Land, and was excited at the opportunity for more of his lyrical writing style. It is bountiful in his fourth novel, but it has a tendency to swallow up anything and everything else so that it can be fully in the spotlight. The descriptions of the land and environment are welcome, but the land itself because its own character, and what with the fascinating cast of characters he built only to stand in the background, that was a bit of a shame.

I will never know "what really happened that night" because I can't get past the author's writing style. I also didn't like "Fallen Land", so clearly this author and I are not compatible. Some find the writing style lyrical. To me it's overwritten, verbose and pretentious. There's way too much description. Dried roots look like "pale arms curling like the tentacles of baby krakens." No. They don't. They look like dried roots. This wasn't for me and I won't be trying this author again. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so good and well written. The story line is well developed. The characters are great. I love the cover and title. An all around good read.

I really wanted to like this book. It had a great storyline and the characters were likeable. I came back to the book 3 different times and finished the book.
In the end, the book was just ok.

Potions and moonshine and snake healers... Oh my! Honestly, I started reading this book because of the cover. It drew me in and made me want to know what mysteries lie inside the pages. Sadly, the novel didn't capture me as much as the cover. The description of the book describes this story as gritty and that's exactly how I'd define it. It takes place in the mountain wilderness of 1950s North Carolina, not so far from the mountains of West Virginia where I spent my adolescence. In fact, many of the people I grew up with would fit in the character lineup for this book. Perhaps it hit a little too close to home and that's why I found it a bit jarring. Truthfully, I didn't connect with the characters and the story crawled along. *ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Rory has returned from the Korean war having lost one leg while there. He’s living with his grandmother on Howl Mountain. Rory’s history is troubled. He was born to an unwed mother while she was in a psychiatric facility, a facility she continues to live in. His grandmother raised me on the mountain, making a living for them by providing traditional remedies to the community. Rory is making money by running whiskey for family friend Eustace. Then Rory has a run-in with the Muldoons, who threaten his life, the county sheriff, who threatens his liberty, and the beautiful Christine, who turns his heart upside down.

This is a beautifully crafted story of life in the mountains of North Carolina. The author carefully reveals to us the challenges that Rory faces as he tries to build a life for himself and deal with the scars, physical and emotional, left him by the war. The descriptions in this story are rich and full of color, and they really draw you into the environment of Howl Mountain. The characters are each unique and complex, hiding a variety of secrets and revealing very little. The story reveals how government actions in the mountains have affected the lives and spirits of the people who live there, and how sometimes the mountain is more menacing than beautiful. This is a story of survival and a story of hope.

This book was as damn near perfect as you'll find.

At the beginning of this year, Netgalley sent me a notice for this one to "Read Now." Not one to turn down a free book, I took the bait. And then I let it sit, forgotten. Until I saw a few enthusiastic reviews. In the mood for some historical fiction, I began.

You look at that cover, beautiful, and you know bad things are coming, gut-wrenching, heartbreaking things, and you are helpless to stop them. And you're right about that, but in the meantime, you fall in love with the place and her people. . .

Howl Mountain, North Carolina, 1952. Uneducated people so used to poverty on the fringes of civilization they've become geniuses at survival. Granny May - well, your God may love her but she'll tell you what you can do with that nonsense. You'd be a fool to argue. Rory Docherty, perhaps the most reluctant hero recent fiction has given us.

I've seen this labelled "grit lit", and it fits in that category well with recent novels such as My Absolute Darling, She Rides Shotgun, and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. All five-star rated by me.

Still, this book transcends that rating. The writing is so fluid, poetic. The flashbacks and night terrors Rory experiences from his service in the Korean War are so vivid. The scenes from the Buddhist temple and the descriptions of the lion dogs I hope will be with me forever. This book should be a classic. It is a classic.

She prayed while he was in Korea. Prayed and prayed. Not to the church-god exactly. To her own. One that lived closer, up on the mountain perhaps. For here was a place for a god to live, not in any building or book. Here she was understood. She was wicked, sure, but no hypocrite. She had fought every day of her life, same as the beasts of the field. The bloody Christ nailed naked and roaring to the cross -- his bones iron split, whip-flayed to the meat - he was hard as they come. Surely he prized grit, a game heart. Same as she did. The rest of it, she could give a fuck.

"He wakes up, you tell him he gets one pass," he said. " For what he could've done on that dam and didn't. For surprising me. And that's all he gets.

"Christ's father let him die on that cross, " she said. "I understand why he done it. She leaned closer, whispering. "But Christ never had no granny like me."

"There's blood and there's family."

To the author and publisher, I apologize for the insult of ignoring your book as long as I did. I am honored to have read it. May the winds on the mountain always blow fair, the chestnuts grow sweet and the Carolina parakeets fly free.

I cared about what happened to these quirky characters from the first chapter. I love how the different storylines came together like strands of rope neatly braided into a story that stayed with me long after I finished reading.