I've never really enjoyed novels set in the bootlegging mountains of Southern USA before with the often hard nosed, amoral types of characters they depict. However, the writing in this novel is so good and the characters lives and motives so well laid out that it's hard not to engage with the story. Sure there are some tough, gritty characters who are often violent but it was the 1950s and to survive in the back country despite little education and poverty wasn't easy.

Rory Docherty is back from the Korean war where he saw atrocities he would rather forget. He also left a foot behind and has learnt to walk and drive with a wooden leg. He makes a living bootlegging moonshine and lives with Granny May who brought him up after his mother Bonni suffered a major trauma and lost her voice and possibly her wits. Bonni now lives in a nursing home and has been unable to speak about the day her life was shattered but Rory lives in hope of working out who is to blame and avenging her. Fortunately for Rory, Granny May is the granny every boy needs fighting on his side, fiercely protective and constantly looking out for him. She makes her living preparing herbal remedies for everyone who comes to her door with their ailments or problems and knows everybody's business.

Taylor Brown has written a very atmospheric book full of bootlegging, stock racing and Pentecostal snake handling. The prose is rich and evocative and the mountains take on a life of their own as Rory takes on the government agents who have no chance of catching him and his load of whisky in his super charged car. Bonni's story is told in small instalments through the novel as she falls in love with the mill owner's gentle son and resonates in the dramatic and violent ending.

Rory Docherty returns home to North Carolina following the Korean War. He comes home haunted by the war and the loss of a leg. This story has a little bit of everything -- faith healing, bootleg liquor, dark family secrets, greed and violence. The characters are gritty and authentic, creating the long-gone atmosphere of 1950's mountain backwoods NC.

It took me a few chapters to really get into this story. It isn't the sort of book I usually read, but since I live in western NC I really wanted to get a taste of what it was like in the moonshine days. Once I got a bit into the story, I couldn't put the book down. There are portions that made me uncomfortable, but the plot was so mesmerizing I just kept reading. Sort of like an accident on the highway....you don't want to look, but something makes you look anyway.

This is definitely Southern fiction. The characters are authentic and it definitely pulled me into a bygone era. I am glad I live in NC now, and not back then.

Taylor Brown is the author of several books including River of Kings and Fallen Land.

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

This was a heart-rendingly beautiful, gut-punchingly brutal, car-revvingly intense book.

Whiskey runners and witch-women, souped-up speed machines and ancient superstitions, snake-handlers that speak in tongues, ice-cold war flashbacks, switchblades hidden in prosthetic limbs, love pounding in an otherwise cynical brain, and some of the most goddamned gorgeous prose I've ever read.

File this in some heavenly hybridization of grit-lit/historical fiction. And then READ IT. READ IT NOW.

I read Gods of Howl Mountain with six of my Traveling Sisters and this one turned out to be a very interesting sister read as we were split into two very different coulees with very different views on this one.

For four of the Traveling Sisters including Norma they were lost in the dewy meadows of the lush coulee while one other TS and I were lost in the looming darkness of the rocky dry coulee looking for some of that moonshine to tie us over for this read.

Gods of Howl Mountain is a dark, gritty, atmospheric southern family drama with beautifully written vivid descriptions of place and time. This was the biggest difference between the two coulees as some of us were drawn into the wordy imagery while the rest of us found the descriptions so lengthy and it bogged down the story for us. The TS in the lush coulee found this one fast-paced with plenty of action while the TS in the dry coulee found it slow-paced with not much interesting happening.

We all agree that Taylor Brown does a great job creating some interesting and likable flawed characters here with Rory and Granny May who both are haunted by their past. We get glimpses into their past and see what hidden secrets haunt them and what ones Granny May needs to reveal.

At times we could feel a storm rolling in along with the roar of those stock cars revving up that created some excitement and tension for Norma and some of the TS with the racing cars scenes. For me and my remaining TS we were left content finding cover with our moonshine. Norma and I still highly recommend this one as we think that our TS sister and I will be staying alone in our dry coulee.

Published on March 20, 2018

Thank you so much to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Taylor Brown for the opportunity to read and review this books.

All of our Traveling Sisters Reviews can be found on our sister blog:
http://www.twogirlslostinacouleereadi...

Gods of Howl Mountain has a lot of things going for it. I was drawn to this unique and beautiful cover, the Southern setting, and the subject matter. One of my best-loved movies is Lawless, featuring Tom Hardy and Shia Labeouf. If you haven't had a chance to watch the movie, the plot is centered around a bootlegging band of brothers and their attempts to evade the Law. The movie portrayed the gritty feel of Southern culture perfectly, much like this novel. The true essence of the culture was captured by Taylor Brown in the unique and oftentimes hilarious idioms used in the South, such as: "Tell you what, I'd eat the crust off a heifer's teats about this moment," or "You must think me dumb as a brick commode and just as easy as to shit on."

I was impressed with author's writing ability, vivid descriptions, and realistic feel of the 1950s North Carolina setting. Unfortunately for me, I have to rate this novel purely on my enjoyment and not on the author's remarkable talent. I desperately wanted to love this book because it seemed as if it would be right up my alley in every facet. I love Historical Fiction and books set in the South. However, I found my mind wandering throughout, unable to focus. There were parts of this story I found interesting, especially the portrayal of Granny May's eccentric style and tell-it-like-it-is attitude. For the most part, I got lost in the long descriptions and didn't find the story moving hastily enough to keep my attention.

The constant switching between the characters' perspectives within a single chapter and third-person storytelling kept me from feeling fully immersed in the book. I was unable to get enough perspective from each character to feel emotionally attached to them, which also contributed to the disconnect. I simply think the author's writing style was not for me as a reader and does not have to do with the book's quality. Gods of Howl Mountain will be a hit for certain audiences and was a worthy representation of the post-war era, Southern culture, and whiskey-running. The book boasts a great and unexpected twist toward the end of the story, along with a perfectly flawed family, but it wasn't enough to rein in a higher rating from me. I really wished I was able to like it more and hate to give a well-written book such a low rating. The story, sadly, left me wanting.

If you find yourself interested in the topics mentioned above, definitely pick up Gods of Howl Mountain on March 20th, it may be just what you're looking for.

Here is a review by Jennifer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2317047765

Come visit Howl Mountain in the 1950's. You will meet Rory and his grandmother. Both are as tough as nails. Rory is a veteran of the Korean War and a whiskey runner. His grandmother, Granny May, is a folk healer and has secrets of her own. Lots of secrets that when revealed will be explosive for all involved.

It took me a while to work my way through Gods of Howl Mountain; I just couldn’t get into this book. As beautifully written as the book was, there were times when I thought the words got in the way detracting from the story.

The story takes place in the 1950’s, Rory, the main character, returns home from the Korean Ware with a wooden leg and few job opportunities. Rory ends up running liquor for the local bootlegger. In the 1930’s the government created the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) and flooded acres of land depriving thousands of people their homesteads. This is the backdrop for the book.

I just felt that the characters were too stereotypical. There is a rich history of Appalachia that I really didn’t get a feel for in this book.

Gods of Howl Mountain is the story of Rory, a young man who comes home to the North Carolina mountains from fighting the Korean War. Home includes living with his grandmother, a high country folk healer, and playing a role in the big stakes world of whiskey running. He also manages to get himself tied up in drag racing and falling in love with a young lady who is a member of a family with questionable religious beliefs. All this happens while he is trying to unlock the mystery behind why his mother is locked up hour away from home and not speaking to anyone. As one can imagine, this was a very dark, violent, complicated story. The author captured the atmosphere and descriptions of the North Carolina mountains very well. I went to school in Boone and my parents have a mountain home in Wilkes County, so I speak from experience. For the most part, the writing itself was good. There was a lot going on and I felt the author tied it together pretty nicely. If you're looking for a gritty book that captures the essence and history of whiskey running, I recommend picking up this title.

Speechless!👍I Loved It!
An intense rollercoaster ride of jaw-dropping twists and turns! A shocking suspense filled storyline that grabs you and rattles you to the core leaving you gasping wanting to come up for air only to be pulled deeper and darker but loving every word wanting more! An unbelievably written story with amazing background detail that I have NEVER read before! (As if every page of detail written you feel like your staring straight into a picture!) One heck of an engrossing story that grabs you and won't let you go, it just leaves you speechless! An absolute must read!

I love Baroque and Rococo churches, but after visiting more than two in a day, my brain turns to mush with the excess of OTT architecture and decoration. This book is Baroque with an added Rococo make-over. Every phrase is embellished, with extra twisting curves on the embellishments. Two examples: “The trees cascaded skeleton like down from the mountaintops, pooling rust-crowned in the valleys, the leaves withering on the limb-ends like burning matchsticks.” and “Granny locked her jaws against a yawn, the cold sucked whistling through her teeth. Slowly she stood, her joints rusty and night-seized, popping and smarting as she rose. Her hips ground in their sockets like mustard seeds in a mortar bowl. Her thighbones were a pair of heavy pestles. Her back an old king post, worm-eaten and warping under the raftered weight of her collarbones”.
The author is clearly gifted, and the imagery is excellent – there is just too much of a good thing, and it gets in the way of telling the story. My brain just cannot cope with so many different images at once, and I lose track of the story and characters. As a result, the book took me much longer to read than it should have.
The surface story is about the illegal whiskey-running in the hills. It is an age-old industry, originally born out of poverty as the only way to make a living wage, but now it is a major business, and everyone wants a bigger cut: Eustace, the current big man in the hills; the Muldoons, a family of town ruffians; and the local sheriff. Meanwhile, the Revenue man, Kingman, wants to shut it all down. The main character, the battle-damaged one-legged Rory, works for Eustace. He lives with his grandmother, the redoubtable Granny May, and falls in love with the daughter of a snake-wrangling, evangelical preacher. His mute mother, Bonni, is in a mental hospital following a massive trauma that may have led to his conception. Neither Rory nor Granny May knows what really happened to Bonni and why, and this mystery is unpicked bit by bit throughout the book, with an unexpected surprise ending.
There is a lot going on in this book to keep your interest. There is the excellent Granny May, with her backstory and herbal medications; the love story between Rory and Christine; the Bonni mystery, more than enough about suped-up cars (if that is where your interests lie) and the bootlegging. The writing, the plotting and characters are all very good – but it just did not grab me the way it should have.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for review.
I really just could not get Into this book. It seemed to me that there was not a plot to this book. It seemed to tell all about everything but never really went anywhere with it. There seems to be no action to the book.
It definitely seems to describe how life was for mountain people back in that time. But to me it was just flat and boring. Did not even finish the book. I was just unable to make myself keep reading it.

Taylor Brown is one of several novelists inspired by Appalachian life, both past and present. Daniel Woodrell, Ron Rash, and Wiley Cash (Brown's mentor) are among the most celebrated, but to my mind, Brown (along with Amy Greene) is one of the best. Whereas his first novel, Fallen Land, had a Civil War setting, Gods of Howl Mountain moves on to 1952 where Rory Docherty, a mechanic and would-be race car driver, has returned home after losing a leg in the Korean War, and earns a precarious living transporting whiskey for a local bootlegger. He lives with his 54 year-old Granny May, an ex-prostitute turned healer, and yearns to know the truth behind the scandal of his mother's committal to a mental institution before he was born. As he grapples with these issues, Rory is drawn to a revivalist church and falls in love with the pastor's daughter. All these threads and more are explored in Gods of Howl Mountain, which is at turns violent, tragic, strange and even comical. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of Granny May as an older woman confident in her sexuality, and Taylor Brown's poetic descriptions of the wild landscape that shapes his characters and their destiny.

WOW! What a powerful book! Set in the 1950's in South Carolina. Rory Docherty is a Korean War hero. Although, he returns broken in spirit and in body. He's lost a leg and he's haunted by the killings he's seen and done. He's also haunted by his past, and his mother's past.

This gritty tale will keep you on the edge of your seat with every turn of the page.

This is my first read by this author and it certainly will not be my last.

I didn't know what to expect from this book but I wasn't disappointed. I would definitely read more from the author. Well written book with great character descriptions.

This story involves whisky-running, folk healers sex, guns and cars... set into the landscape of the mountainous high country of North Carolina. It's 1950, and Rory Docherty has returned from the war with a wooden leg. He lives in a cabin with his Granny May, who is my favorite character in the book. She used to work in a whorehouse, makes a living selling herbal remedies, smokes a corncob pipe (of likely "medicinal" substance) and is skilled with handling a shotgun. One minute she's smoking a pipe rocking in a chair on her porch, and the next she could be rocking against the headboard of her bed.

There's a mystery to be unravelled involving Rory's mother, who cannot speak and lives in a mental facility. There is also friction and mistrust between those that live in the mountains versus the valley.

This is a unique book written in such a way as to be savored. It's not a free-flowing style that rolls easily over the tongue and through your brain. It's very descriptive with minute details and almost poetic. I found myself having to re-read passages to digest things fully, but sometimes grew impatient and skimmed past things to cut to the chase. The more this kind of story speaks to you, the more patient you will be to hang on every word. I was only mildly interested in the premise of this story, so I grew impatient with the writing style.

I cannot honestly review this book, as I am putting it aside after reading just over a third of it. I just cannot find any plot developing that is of interest, and none of the characters are compelling enough to pull me through. I had high hopes for this one.

I received an advance reader's copy of [Gods of Howl Mountain] through NetGalley. Set in the 1950s in North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains, the novel focuses on Granny May and her grandson Rory as they struggle to come to terms with a traumatic past that has left Rory's mother and her daughter locked up in an insane asylum.

The opening scenes of the novel offer a view of what might seem a stereotypical mountain grandmother, rocking and smoking on the porch of her cabin. But while she does seem to be everyone's granny, offering mountain remedies for ailments and tending to her grandson and his friend, she also wields a shotgun with ease and has her own past to contend with. Plus, she isn't above a bit of malicious fun when it comes to those who judge her.

Rory, her grandson, home from the Korean War minus a leg, works in the moonshine trade, dodging the revenuers and locals in his big Ford. He is a somewhat reluctant participant but it is the work available to him. One night, he stumbles upon a group of frenzied Pentecostals worshipping in an old garage, speaking in tongues and handling snakes. The scenes of the church have a surreal quality as we move into the crowd with Rory, mesmerized by the chanting and dancing.

The novel itself seems to pulse with the life of the mountains and Taylor Brown uses rich prose to describe people and places. It threatens every so often to spill over into excess but Brown manages to keep control, much like his main characters controls the big Ford. His world is one of raw life: violence, sex, love, grief all rolled into complex characters.

In the mountains of North Carolina in the mid-twentieth century, there aren’t a lot of options for making money. For the women, it’s the mills or prostitution. Or, in the case of Granny May, prostitution and then backwoods healing. For the men, it’s the mills of whiskey. Granny May’s grandson, Rory, became a whiskey runner after he lost his leg in Korea. In Taylor Brown’s Gods of Howl Mountain, we watch the two of them do their best to keep themselves going in spite of their hardships—which have just gotten a lot harder with a new federal revenue man in town and a troublemaker who has decided that he needs to teach Rory a fatal lesson.

Granny May is one of the most terrific characters I’ve read in a while. She takes no crap and delights in saying naughty things around her grandson. She smokes an unnamed plant, makes cures for any ailment under the sun, and blows a hole in the roof when she hears what sounds like a panther scream up there. I could have read an entire book about her because she’s fascinating. Her grandson, Rory, is interesting in a less flashy way. He suffers flashbacks and pain in his lost leg. After tangling with another whiskey runner, Cooley, Rory ends up in an escalating series of showdowns with the disturbing man.

Just to make things even more interesting, there are also interstitial scenes that help explain how Granny May and Rory ended up together on their mountain. This subplot becomes important in the book’s climax, but I was entertained enough with the fighting, Granny’s antics, and all the car racing. There’s hardly a moment in this book where the characters have a chance to catch their breaths.

Gods of Howl Mountain is a gripping read, with a good blend of pathos and humor and plenty of action. For readers looking for something that will give them a taste of the hard and wild life of Appalachia, this book is the perfect choice.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration. It will be released 20 March 2018.

It took me a long time to finish this book. Not because I didn't like it and couldn't get into but because I knew that I was reading that rare elusive novel that I am in always in search of. Every line in this book is soaked with beautiful prose and nuance. It is a book to be savored slowly a little at a time. I have found in my opinion the perfect trifecta in David Joy, Wiley Cash and now Taylor Brown. If you haven't discovered this amazing author yet you are going to disappoint yourself if you don't pick up a copy of this book as soon as it's released. Happy reading!