MOST PECULIAR WAYS, the last in the trilogy of short story books set in the foothills of Southern Appalachia.
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MOST PECULIAR WAYS
Ever-fearful of his desperate father’s abusive behavior, young Frankie Jameson hopes he’s found an answer to his prayers in a mysterious boy healer working miracles at a tent revival.
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Young Frankie Jameson doesn’t know much about life beyond his father’s traveling medicine show. He doesn’t know how much longer he can endure the mounting verbal and physical abuse. And he doesn’t know who or what seems to be listening to his silent pleas for help. But after witnessing miraculous healings at a tent revival service, he believes the mysterious boy evangelist does.
Shawn Lusk discovers his former high school sweetheart is set to marry a handsome young attorney and settle in posh Franklin, Tennessee. Shawn’s long struggle with depression magnifies as he contrasts Lisa’s impending life of wealth and prestige with that of his own simple existence back in their hometown of Olivia. In the dark recesses of his troubled mind, he begins to wonder, If I can’t be happy, perhaps neither should she.
It’s a big event in the small town of Olivia. Local girl Emily Burkhart turned Hollywood actress Lacy Jaymes comes home to give an interview to a venerable local television personality. She returns to LA the next day for the premiere of her latest film. But it’s the drama of the interview’s revelation that leaves a stunned crowd gathered at the Smoky Cove Tavern’s watch party wondering if there is a monster among them.
It’s the end of the line for inmate Charles Buckley. As he lays dying in a prison infirmary, he asks to speak to the prison chaplain…confession being good for the soul. But as Father Ramey spends time at the terminal patient’s bedside, he discovers that the soul he hopes to redeem is not so easily reached.
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IN THE MISTY BLUE YONDER
From afar the Southern Appalachians appear majestic and pure, but within what the Cherokees called “the land of blue smoke” lurk hidden evils not listed in the guidebooks.
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Ray Solomon can leave his hometown behind. His wife and daughter too. But Ray’s past actions and his thirst for alcohol have followed him to his new place in the foothills of Southern Appalachia. Here, his attempt to start anew falls apart in brutal fashion.
It was the final day of the ’82 World’s Fair and banker Finley Cross’s annual Halloween party epitomized the era of big money, luxury cars, grandiose homes, bulging bags of powder, and bloated egos. But the next day, as masks lay strewn about the floors of the criminally wealthy, the hangovers can’t be soothed with aspirin and a Bloody Mary.
It’s 1969 and widower Bobby Tolliver is doing his best to raise his teenaged daughter and young son alone. But the Tolliver clan has a history of lawlessness, even when they are the law. Bobby learns the depths of human depravity after discovering a girl chained up in a shed on his family’s property.
Gerald McNabb is dying of cancer. The loathsome liveaboard attempts to clear his conscience by offering a caregiver his account of the massacre at the Whistle Mountain Resort back in the summer of ’69. What circumstances could have brought a twelve-year-old Gerald McNabb and petty criminal Bobby Tolliver to Whistle Mountain on that infamous night?
A CAPTIVATING READ, LEADING THROUGH MANY LIVES WHICH ULTIMATELY COME INTO PERSPECTIVE. WELL CRAFTED. I RECOMMEND TO THE READER WHO ENJOYS THE JOURNEY.
- Amazon Review, LAKE OBLIVIA
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LAKE OBLIVIA
The calm waters of Lake Olivia portray a sense of idyllic life, but locals know that all is not as it seems in these short stories of mystery and suspense.
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When Dr. Andrew Rosselli and his wife relocate from Tampa to her hometown of Olivia, he brings with him his beloved Cabo 35 Express, lax professional and moral ethics, and his perceived superiority. Rosselli’s blasé existence in the sticks takes a sharp turn when a boat capsizes on the chimney of a submerged house near his secluded rural health clinic, threatening him and his medicinal allocations with unwanted attention from the local sheriff’s department.
Widower Fayette Moseley alleviates the loneliness at home by adopting a dog from the local shelter and trying his hand at homemade blackberry wine. By day, he runs a vintage press at Preston Prints in downtown Olivia. When the pastor of school-aged coworker Jeremy is hired on, the boy is noticeably apprehensive. Fayette reluctantly returns to the mystical waters of his own childhood for answers concerning young Jeremy and the oily preacher moonlighting as a pressman.
Anne Adams’s favorite season is upon her, and she’s already received the most precious gift she could ever imagine—sole custody of her granddaughter, Abigail. But holiday cheer is hard to find in the foreboding foothills of Myer County. When the dreadful actions of her estranged daughter, Cassidy, are revealed at trial, Anne discovers her good fortune has come at a most disheartening price.
Billy’s Friday night guitar lessons with his friend, mentor, and guitar hero Russell Sumner are the highlight of his week. Though Russell’s fingers never miss a note, the aging picker’s mind is failing him. Billy’s family and friends start to wonder if Russell’s increasingly far-fetched tales and accusations could be more than what his nephew, caretaker, and heir apparent, Kenny Sumner, has dismissed as symptoms of mild sundowning.
