My new book Leaf Season is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Georgia [mostly], a beautiful area I have long wanted to write about.
I spent most of my growing up years [ages 8-18] in Knoxville, in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. Seeing the mountains in the distance from almost every window of the house, and frequently while driving down many of the roads in East Tennessee, I grew to take them for granted. They were just there, great hulking giants, always silent. However, when I moved to Atlanta in 1993 I missed them terribly.
As I grew older I began to learn that the mountains have their own culture. The Foxfire books that came out in the 1970's shone a light on mountain culture. I read about how to make a quilt, butcher a hog, churn butter. To me, it was fascinating - a real life sort of time travel. It helped that my parents and grandparents kept things like butter churns, an antique iron, and a mill stone at home, and we talked about "the olden days" a lot. My grandfather Bob Hasty [Pepaw or Papa] grew up on a farm in Cherokee County, just north of Atlanta but a world away in culture [see photo below of him making sorghum as a teenager]. When I went to Cades Cove as a child, or the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge, I would think about how it would feel to live on a farm, to be part of the mountains, to have to read by firelight or make blankets out of scraps of fabric.
For part of her childhood my mother lived on a farm -- not a small family farm but a huge agribusiness my grandfather managed. When I was a kid she talked about those days, and what it was like to cook on a wood stove, and use a slop jar, and "put up" vegetables and fruits for the winter. She still likes to talk about those days. I love to hear her reminiscences.
In writing my new book, Leaf Season, I didn't attempt to re-capture those old days -- there are no scenes of anyone making moonshine or quilting -- but I wanted to convey the idea that the mountains have always been not just a place of hardship but places of sanctuary. As my paternal grandmother was dying she kept repeating "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help" [Psalm 121]. My mother nursed her through her last illness. Ever since my mother told me that a few years ago I have thought about it a lot. Why did Grandmother Cordelia keep repeating that verse? Obviously it had great meaning for her.
My main character, Wyatt Jamison, is a busy Atlanta lawyer who longs for the peace of the mountains, away from 8 lane interstates and 60 hour work weeks. [I know a lot about being an Atlanta lawyer because I spent more than twenty years in that world.] When Wyatt inherits a house from his uncle in a small town in the mountains, he meets a woman named Sally who lives next door. Sally has spent most of her life living in the mountains of North Georgia. Wyatt wants to be with her but there are several big obstacles in their way.
FYI, the term "leaf season" refers to the tourists who literally flock to the mountains during autumn, to see the beautiful Fall colors.
In most novels romance is reserved for twenty or thirty-somethings and I wanted this book to be different. Wyatt and Sally met once as kids but when they re-connect years later it's a powerful thing. Falling in love is never easy, but when you have grown children and careers and houses it can be really challenging. Being in your 50's is a weird time of life. You're not a kid any more. You're not an elderly person on a walker needing a hearing aid. You're a bit past middle age. Some of your peers still have teenagers living at home, and some of your peers have grandchildren in middle school.
Leaf Season isn't just a romance or a travel book, or about history. It's all those things, and more. I like my books to have mystery, and of course there are ghosts. There are also funny moments and touching moments. It's a very different book from my first novel, Ghosts in the Garden City -- but if you liked that book you will probably like Leaf Season.
Leaf Season is available on Amazon. You can order the paperback here and the Kindle here. If you have a Kindle Unlimited membership it's available on Kindle for FREE right now. If you are on Facebook check out my post about it. I am giving away 3 free paperback copies to folks who re-post my announcement about it.