The Saints of Swallow Hill is an emotional read, that quickly transports you to the south, during the Great Depression. Where turpentining was the way of life for a few. I do not know about you, but I love books when I learn new facts or tidbits of information from a book. I had no idea that turpentine is extracted from pine trees and it was an industry found throughout the Southern states. I was quickly fascinated and drawn into the complex, down on their luck characters of Del and Rae Lynn.

Del is a ladies' man that is on a path of self-destruction and barely getting by. Rae Lynn and her husband Warren have a small turpentine business. This job can be a risky and at times a dangerous job, especially since Warren loves to push the limits and take risks. With not only himself, but with his workers. His hazardous ways lead to a life threatening accident. Which leaves Rae Lynn in a horrible predicament, and to the untimely death to her beloved.

The Saints of Swallow Hill brings to light the everyday struggles that the people endured during the depression. Hardly getting by the skin of your teeth. Half starving, not knowing where your next penny will come from. This leads to both Del and Rae Lynn to the turpentine camp of Swallows Hill, in Georgia. The camp is designed to keep people in debt to their employers. Never able to pay it off and be able to leave. The conditions of this camp are horrific. There are also some extremely dark characters that love to torture and make other people's lives miserable. Their choice of punishment for being too slow, or claiming they did something wrong, is days in the sweatbox, whipping, or sometimes lynching. Race issues come screaming to the forefront of this book, as Del begins a job that is reserved for just black man. While Rae Lynn tries to pass as a man in order to be able to work the trees.

Donna Everhart does a suburb job with her use of description. You can imagine being enveloped in the hot, heavy, humidity of the south. There is a natural rhythm and flow to this story, that you can hear whispering through the pine trees. The friendship and love that naturally blooms out of heartache and pain, is the backbone to the book. You will find yourself rooting for the underdog, for the strong, and for the determined. Thank you to Kensington Books, Donna Everhart, and NetGalley for allowing me to read this fantastic book.

When I saw that this book was being compared to Where the Crawdads Sing I knew I had to pick it up. It didn't disappoint. Del and Rae Lynn were perfectly suited to each other. The depth of characters was very well done, from PeeWee (was glad that he remained friends with Del and finally saw Crow for how terrible he really was), Crow, Cornelia, Otis and all the workers in Swallow Hill. I am not familiar with the turpentine process, but it sure sounds like hard work and a lot of it to get it the turpentine.

I really enjoyed this book quite a bit.

If you combined The Saints of Swallow Hill with The Four Winds, you will have the epic novel of all time! This book was fantastic and gave an intimate look into the lives of turpentine camps and its workers during the Depression. I highly recommend this book!

The Saints of Swallow Hill by Donna Everhart is an excellent Southern historical fiction novel that I truly loved from beginning to end.

I loved the author’s previous book, The Moonshiner’s Daughter, so I knew I had to read this gem. I was not disappointed!

Ms. Everhart has a way of depicting the Southern landscapes, society, characters, and feel that is not easily matched. She creates a vivid, intricate, realistic, and hauntingly beautiful narrative every time.

I loved reading this book that took me into the heart of North Carolina and Georgia during the Great Depression. I felt like I was actually there with Rae Lynn as she fights every battle, obstacle, and challenge. I loved the characters in regards to Cornelia and Del as well. The plot was beyond creative, addictive, heartbreaking and yet heartwarming to read. I won’t take away the surprises and excellent ending for the fellow readers, but I will just say that it is wonderful and will stay with me for a long time.

5/5 stars

Thank you Kensington for this wonderful arc and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon, Instagram, and B&N accounts upon publication.

“The Saints of Swallow Hill” by Donna Everhart is an interesting novel that plays on some stereotypes of life in the rural South. In starting the book, I almost put it down due to those racial and socioeconomic stereotypes. I am very glad that I persevered with this book because I found the storyline entertaining and the character development detailed.

There are several events that happen in this novel that also describe life during the Great Depression and the types of trials that individuals living through such a difficult economic time experienced. Two distinct threads as well as numerous smaller ones run through out the book.

Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband Warren are eking out a living in rural North Carolina. The death of her husband under suspicious circumstances and the thread of a neighbor cause her to leave. At the same time, the other main thread character, Delwood Reese, has an out-of-body experience during what would be a near farming disaster that could have cost him his life.

These two threads weave together in a Georgia turpentine camp deep in the pine thickets of the rural part of the state. Other minor threads and characters pop in and out as they interact with the two primary protagonists. Some interactions good and some very bad almost causing death.

Life during these times was most definitely hard and learning things about people which were not acceptable during the current social milieu doesn’t make it easier. Friendships grow and wane and love even finds a way to bloom.

So, from the first over-stereotypical introduction to a personal reality check from someone who had grown up in rural South, although not during the Depression, it struck a chord of reality. From farmers with no real money but with plenty to eat from their efforts with gardens and farm stock to the slash pine work along the coastal areas, there is much reality here and it gives the reader the visceral reality of having been there. It was a hard time but things like friendship, love, family, and making do was what happened and probably still does in this area as well as many others. There was a certain resilience in not just the main characters but also there was prejudice and hate on display.

The book has a section of questions that will guide discussion at a book club gathering. A great job and a most enjoyable read.

I wasn't going to pick this book up but now I'm glad I did!
This was a story that I couldn't put down because these characters wanted me to read about their journey and somewhere along the Iine I learned about a subject that I have never heard much of. How turpentine was made.
I've met many wonderful characters such as Cornelia and Rae Lynne.
Del, Peewee, Preacher, among many others.
Birdie was my favorite. He was so brave! Then I was mad because of what happened to him.
Here's a quote that has stood out to me and is very true.
" I bet you had your reasons. We always do what we have to do, don't we.," Women folks is what Cornelia meant. They were the most often to bend or get broken.
Wow! What a powerful quote and a reminder that people aren't always what they seem either
I liked Cornelia immediately but I sure didn't like Otis very much!
Ol meanie!
I also didn't like Crow. He gave me the willies. The way he treated people. I don't like people like that.
I love how this new to me author describes the people and scenes so vividly that it makes you feel like you are a part of the story.
The writing is very well done and so is the research that Everhart has done.
Many twists and turns that I never saw coming at all.
I finished this book in the early morning hours and will be very tired. But it's a good tired!!
This story reminds me a lot of Lisa Wingate's The Book of Lost Friends. I feel this could be the companion book.
I highly recommend.
My thanks for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

It's always a happy day in my reading life to get a Donna Everhart book in my hands. She refers to herself as an author of Southern novels with authenticity and grit. I refer to her as one of my favorite authors of Southern historical fiction. I have read every book she's written and loved them all.

This novel takes place during the Depression in North Carolina. One of the major crops in the state was turpentine - laborers hacked into pine tree trunks to draw out the sticky sap and hauled the resin to refineries to be distilled into turpentine. This is the reason that North Carolina is often referred to as the Tar Heel State. The work was brutal but it was the Depression and people worked at anything available to feed their families.

Rae Lynn is the main character. She grew up in an orphanage and when Warren, a man much older than she, asked her to marry him, she was thrilled to finally have a home and family of her own. Warren was a small time maker of turpentine and Rae Lynn stayed right by his side and worked as hard as he did. After Rae Lynn performs a desperate act of mercy to her ailing husband, she knows that she needs to leave town. She dresses as a man and volunteers to work at the turpentine labor camp called Swallow Hill. There she meets Del, a man who has wandered his entire life. He takes a liking to the young 'man' and tries to protect him from the evil boss Crow whose main goal is to punish workers to make them work harder. Can Rae Lynn and Del make the work camp better for the workers and get rid of the sadistic crew boss? Can Rae Lynn and Dell confront their pasts so that they can create a new future for themselves?

I live in North Carolina and never knew where the term Tar Heel came from or anything about making turpentine. Donna Everhart really did her research in this book and gave her readers a very interesting look at the work involved in making turpentine. The setting was beautiful in the large pine forests of North Carolina. For me, the best part of the book were the characters - especially Rae Lynn. She tried so hard to find a family and just when it seemed like she was going to be successful, she got knocked down over and over. Because she was such a strong woman, she kept getting up again and looking for her happy ending. She was a character that won't be forgotten.

My advice for you is to read this book - you don't want to miss it. Clear your calendar before you read the first page because you won't want to do anything else but read it until the end. Once again Donna Everhart has given her readers a southern novel full of authenticity and grit!

Thanks to net galley for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s a good story told about something, harvesting pine gum, that I didn’t know and a great story with belivable characters.
The net galley copy needs a bit of editing, but it surely is a good book.

The Saints of Swallow Hill is a very good read. The characters are very well developed and interesting. The historical aspects of the novel are well researched. I highly recommend.

THE SAINTS OF SWALLOW HILL is sure to be another winner from Donna Everhart. Rae Lynn is an endearing and sympathetic character who faces incredible odds and has a lot of strength and gumption. Readers will love following along on her adventures. The setting is also very evocative and memorable; you feel as though you are right there with the characters. A hard story at times but certainly one well worth reading.

WoW! This is my favorite book of 2021 so far! I loved everything about this beauty!
This book is set in North Carolina. Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband, Warren, who run a small turpentine farm together. Rae Lynn undertakes a desperate act of mercy. To keep herself from jail, she disguises herself as a man named "Ray" and heads to the only place she can think of that might offer anonymity—a turpentine camp in Georgia named Swallow Hill.
This.was a really cool book to read to follow along with! It was interesting, brave, neat, wonderful!
I just enjoyed this book alot!

Rae Lynn and her husband Everett run a small turpentine farm in North Carolina. The works is hard, but after a grueling childhood in an orphanage, Rae Lynn isn’t afraid of hard work. When Everett is killed, Rae Lynn dresses herself as a man, calls herself, Ray, and gets a job at a turpentine camp in Swallow Hill, Georgia. Rae comes to know the members of the camp, brutal commissary owner, Otis and his abused wife, Cornelia, Crow, the overseer who carefully watches every move she makes and Det, a man trying to outrun his past. Together, these complex and diverse characters come to life under Everhart’s pen, creating a world so real, you can almost smell the pine sap

This was just a sample of the book, I'd like to read the whole novel! Is the entire book available? I am a big fan of the author and was so excited to read this. When I opened my kindle, it was just a small excerpt!