▪ Cataloochee by Wayne Caldwell
A sprawling family saga set in the mountains of western North Carolina between the Civil War and the early 20th century, Caldwell's debut succeeds in bringing to life the inhabitants of this particular time and place. When rough Ezra Banks arrives at the Cataloochee settlements after fleeing an abusive father and surviving a short stint in the military, he is determined to own an orchard and settle down. He marries local girl Hannah Carter, beginning contentious relations between neighbors and family that last throughout the generations of the novel.
▪ Heaven Lake by John Dalton
In this exceptional debut novel, a naive young Christian volunteer, Vincent Saunders, travels to a small town in Taiwan to teach English and Bible-study classes. One of the teenage girls in his class boldly seduces him, and the complications resulting from the affair, and other unexpected situations, cause Vincent to flee from the town. In a remarkable spiritual journey, he travels across China, learning much about himself, his heart, and the new country and people who change his life.
▪ Bulletproof Girl by Quinn Dalton (stories)
Quinn Dalton offers eleven raw and witty stories powered by a rich mix of women's voices. The stakes are high in these diverse narratives. "Dinner at Josette's" explores the nature of female friendships in the story of a woman whose best friend is in love with a gay man. "Midnight Bowling" follows seventeen-year-old Tess as she escapes her fanatically religious mother's pipe dreams and her dead father's legacy. In "Lennie Remembers the Angels," a woman confronts a long-ago vision as she recovers from a hit-and-run accident. In "Graceland," a once supportive businessman's wife turns to murder.
▪ The King of Lies by John Hart
This stellar debut from former lawyer John Hart is a first-class mystery/thriller (à la John Grisham and Scott Turow) that will hit readers like a ton of bricks. The King of Lies centers on 35-year-old North Carolina defense attorney Jackson Workman "Work" Pickens, the well-to-do son of a prominent local lawyer, whose entire existence unravels when his famous father, missing for 18 months, is found murdered in an abandoned mall.
▪ The Pleasure Was Mine by Tommy Hays
With elegance and a skillful command of language, Tommy Hays has rendered an unforgettable character in Prate Marshbanks, who is losing his beloved wife and companion of 50 years to Alzheimer’s, only to find that he is also establishing new bonds with his widowed son and grandson. The Pleasure Was Mine is a quietly wrenching portrayal of grief, a magical and romantic story about the power of love, and an unexpectedly moving take on the resilience of family.
▪ Poe and Fanny by John May
Beautiful, smart, and vivacious, Fanny is a poet and a darling of mid-nineteenth-century New York's gossipy elite. Separated from her painter husband, she falls for the mercurial, hard-drinking, impoverished genius Edgar Allan Poe, whose poem "The Raven" is the talk of the town. May's enchanting protagonist is a fictionalized version of the real life Frances S. Osgood, once an enormously popular but now forgotten poet.
▪ Maggie Sweet by Judith Minthorn Stacy
Maggie Sweet has had it! For nineteen years, she's kept house, raised a pair of battling twin daughters, put up with her frugal husband, Steven, humored his impossible mother, and kept her mouth shut. But when Steven spends their life savings on a cemetery plot, it's time for Maggie to take control. With her twenty-year high school reunion just around the corner and her long-lost high school boyfriend back in town, it's Maggie's turn to start turning heads. In the face of small-minded gossips, a surly family, and a meddling grandmother, Maggie must reach deep inside her Southern-housewife soul to become the woman she wants to be.
▪ The Piano Teacher by Lynn York
Miss Wilma, the resident organist and piano teacher in the small Southern village of Swan's Knob has enough on her plate already, with preparing the music for Lily Mae Strong's wedding extravaganza and fending off the pestering of perennial bachelor Roy, who's got himself all worked up over plans for the July Fourth celebration. But when her prodigal daughter Sarah returns with her young child, what can Wilma do but try to enjoy the blessing of their unexpected visit?
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