"The Saints of Swallow Hill"--award-winning author Donna Everhart’s latest novel immerses readers in its unique setting—the turpentine camps and pine forests of the American South during the Great Depression—for a captivating story of friendship, survival, and three vagabonds' intersecting lives

  

The Saints of Swallow Hill

Few writers evoke the complexities of the heart and the gritty fascination of the American South as vividly as Donna Everhart, whose lyrical new novel, set against the background of the Great Depression, is a powerful story of courage, survival, and friendship…

It takes courage to save yourself...

During the Great Depression, wretched labor camps crop up in remote areas of the expansive pine forests throughout the American South. Destitute workers live and toil under terrible conditions to harvest pine gum, hacking into tree trunks, drawing out the sticky sap that gives the Tar Heel State its nickname, and hauling it to stills to be refined into turpentine. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. Subsistence living means racking huge debts they are forced to work off, creating an endless cycle of labor and debt. But for the most desperate among America’s vast unemployed, these camps are often the last and only option.
 
This much is true for three individuals whose lives intersect in the deep woods of Georgia at the Swallow Hill turpentine camp in 1932. For Rae Lynn Cobb, a young woman disguised as a man, Swallow Hill offers distance and anonymity from those who would wrongly imprison her for killing her kind though careless husband. For a charming bachelor named Del Reese, it’s a place where backbreaking work might drown out memories of a recent trauma that’s shaken him to his core.
 
But Swallow Hill is no easy haven. The squalid camp is ruled by a sadistic boss named Crow and the greedy commissary owner Otis Riddle, a man who takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. Del and “Ray Cobb” are physically and emotionally tested as they struggle to survive harsh, brutal conditions under the ever watchful, narrow-minded Crow. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with both Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past, with all its pain and beauty, before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again…

 

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF DONNA EVERHART
 
THE MOONSHINER’S DAUGHTER
 
“This riveting novel will have readers, especially those who enjoy Kaye Gibbons, captivated from the first page.”—Booklist (starred review)
 
THE FORGIVING KIND
 
“Reminiscent of the novels of Lee Smith, Kaye Gibbons, and Sandra Dallas, Everhart builds a firm sense of place, portraying the tiredness and hope of a dry southern summer and voicing strong southern women.”—Booklist
 
THE ROAD TO BITTERSWEET
 
 “You will fall in love with Wallis Ann Stamper as she meets the bitter challenges of her hardscrabble life, inspired by her sweet love for her family. Her grit and unfailing faith in herself will melt your heart, as it did mine.”—Sandra Dallas, New York Times bestselling author
 
 “Everhart is a good storyteller and makes her characters and their experiences come alive.”—Booklist
 
“The book is Southern fiction at its finest.”—Historical Novels Society
 
THE EDUCATION OF DIXIE DUPREE
 
“Please open your heart to Dixie Dupree. With unflinching honesty and a voice that rings with authenticity, she survives the unthinkable. Her story celebrates the resiliency of the human spirit and the triumph of the imagination. An important novel, beautifully written, this is a story to cherish.”—Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author
 
 “Young Dixie Dupree is an indomitable spirit in this coming-of-age novel that is a heartbreaking and honest witness to the resilience of human nature and the fighting spirit and courage residing in all of us.”—The Huffington Post
 
“In a powerful coming‑of‑age story that pitches southern charm against dark family secrets, the voice of 11‑year‑old Dixie Dupree captivates from the first page to the last.”—Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son

 

Donna Everhart

 

Donna Everhart is the USA Today bestselling author of Southern fiction with authenticity and grit, including the Southeastern Library Association Award-winning The Road to Bittersweet and her most recent novel, The Moonshiner’s Daughter.

Her fifth novel, The Saints of Swallow Hill, will be released in February 2022.

Born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, she now lives with her husband in a small town in the Sandhills region, and is most likely working on her next novel.

She is a member of the Weymouth Center, North Carolina Writers’ Network, and Women’s Fiction Writers Association.

Readers can also visit her at www.donnaeverhart.com.