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A Land More Kind Than Home [LAND MORE KIND THAN HOME] [Paperback]
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 25, 2025
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Psychological Suspense / Southern Gothic
Audience: Adult
In the misty folds of the North Carolina mountains, just beyond Asheville, a quiet town hides a festering darkness. Pastor Carson Chambliss, an ex-con and self-proclaimed man of God, has built his church on fear and fire—sermons laced with poison, tongues, and the hiss of serpents. Years ago, Adelaide Lyle saw the danger in his brand of salvation and gathered the town’s children under her own roof, shielding them from his pulpit’s grip. But when the innocent curiosity of one boy stirs the shadows, old evils awaken. What follows is a reckoning—raw, intimate, and unrelenting—that exposes the fragile line between faith and fanaticism, redemption and ruin.
It’s a story that lingers like smoke after the flames have died, leaving behind the uneasy question of what truly dwells in the heart of a believer.
Genre: Psychological Suspense / Southern Gothic
Audience: Adult
In the misty folds of the North Carolina mountains, just beyond Asheville, a quiet town hides a festering darkness. Pastor Carson Chambliss, an ex-con and self-proclaimed man of God, has built his church on fear and fire—sermons laced with poison, tongues, and the hiss of serpents. Years ago, Adelaide Lyle saw the danger in his brand of salvation and gathered the town’s children under her own roof, shielding them from his pulpit’s grip. But when the innocent curiosity of one boy stirs the shadows, old evils awaken. What follows is a reckoning—raw, intimate, and unrelenting—that exposes the fragile line between faith and fanaticism, redemption and ruin.
It’s a story that lingers like smoke after the flames have died, leaving behind the uneasy question of what truly dwells in the heart of a believer.
December 26, 2023
This is my second time through this book as I nominated it for book club after reading a number of years ago. As with many Appalachian stories, this one feels very sad for a long time. It goes into the Pentacostal practice of speaking in tongues, drinking poison, and snake handling. As in small communities, there is an interconnectedness of the people and a knowing of one another's "business" you don't get in larger areas. Although sad, there is hope by the completion and the writing is very well done and in the mountain people's "voice".
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews