Taylor Brown invites the reader to this place and time with such fantastic descriptive writing and in a page you are there . To this mountain in 1950’s North Carolina, to the land of moonshine and makeshift churches where snakes rule, where evil deeds of the past still haunt, to a place of healing herbs and potions, violence, deceit and greed - all so gritty and dark and so beautifully written with a sad love story at the center of it . Brown has such a command of the language, nothing flowery here, just perfect descriptions with the perfect adjectives that made me reread some passages just to feel them again and see what he wants us to see.

Rory, a whiskey runner, is haunted by his time in the war in Korea, by the loss of a limb, by the killings, and by what happened to his mother before he was born. His Grandmother, feisty and formidable Granny May is haunted by what happened to her daughter and by what she had to do in the past for them to survive. So it’s Rory’s mother story that is central to the novel. I love that we get to know it from Bonni’s perspective with short chapters interspersed so we get to know how much she loved the Gaston boy. Flashbacks to the past from both Rory and Granny are seamless as well. They take us to the past but tell us so much about where they are in the moment, in their thoughts of the past.

No need to to rehash the plot, only to say it’s action packed in places , introspective in others, sad but with the injection of humor at times, repeating myself but gritty, sometimes violent and gruesome but all in all a fabulous story of the south, of love and family. 4+ stars from me.

This was a monthly read with my great Goodreads friends Diane and Esil. It took three tries to find one we all thought positively about and thanks to Taylor Brown this was it.


I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley.