John P. Ellington

An atmospheric debut set in Southern Appalachia, about lifelong friendships, class differences, terrible mistakes, and the dazzling beauty of unspoiled nature.

Nestled between the smoky, rolling peaks of Southern Appalachia lies the town of Brevard, North Carolina. When Chris Avery’s family moves to Brevard in the early 1970s, Chris quickly becomes immersed in a world untouched by the mire of life outside the mountains.

As a young boy, Chris meets the son of the struggling dairy farmer next door, Walker Davis, and Walker’s best friend, Brook Palmer. The three of them become as bonded to each other as they are to the vibrant world in which their lives unfold, spending the formative years of their childhood wandering in the woods chasing waterfalls and brook trout. However, they soon find out that life isn’t always so simple.

What once seemed like Heaven is hopelessly ripped apart at the seams when one of the characters commits an irrevocable mistake that challenges friendship, love, and Chris’s understanding of even himself. Grasping at straws of a fractured past, Chris is forced to pit his conscience against the people he loves, all while listening to the subtle, haunting voices laced in the wind.

Fans of heartfelt literary fiction will experience the agony of irreversible choices and the consequences we must all face, set against the Appalachian peaks towering over small, forgotten mountain towns.