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The Legends of Ryland Creek
Young Sharon “Lill” Ernst finds solace in the woodlands of her rural hometown of Painted Post. With her family, Lill has grown up following their coonhounds in the nighttime forests.
Andrew Renthro, orphan but heir apparent to a vast empire of drug dealers, has been ordered to prove his worthiness. Andrew leaves his native Chicago—a teen who eagerly seeks revenge for a father he never knew—and his success means destroying the unsuspecting Ernst family.
But the forests of Painted Post don’t belong solely to the realm of man. Stories of guiding spirits, ghostly hounds, and hideous beasts abound in this mystical place of wooded hollows, streams, and pathways.
For many trails converge and diverge in these oak-strewn hills.
Some paths lead to redemption … while others may end in certain doom.
But all have the potential to become legend.
Andrew Renthro, orphan but heir apparent to a vast empire of drug dealers, has been ordered to prove his worthiness. Andrew leaves his native Chicago—a teen who eagerly seeks revenge for a father he never knew—and his success means destroying the unsuspecting Ernst family.
But the forests of Painted Post don’t belong solely to the realm of man. Stories of guiding spirits, ghostly hounds, and hideous beasts abound in this mystical place of wooded hollows, streams, and pathways.
For many trails converge and diverge in these oak-strewn hills.
Some paths lead to redemption … while others may end in certain doom.
But all have the potential to become legend.
263 pages, Paperback
Published April 10, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 8, 2026
A struggle between light and darkness, a hallowed place (the area around Painted Post) and those who would harm it, revenge and redemption.
The story revolves around the Ernst family, the ones who remain, and a city boy (Andrew) who starts out for Painted Post as an assassin--for revenge. But he meets Lill Ernst and, well, visions hard to explain of lost loved ones, and where the woods "determine if'n you make it back out."
We meet the rumored Gandalark, once human, now a wizard's understudy, that feasts on the wicked in the Black Oaks of Ryland Creek, as part of another hypnotic coonhunter yarn.
The story revolves around the Ernst family, the ones who remain, and a city boy (Andrew) who starts out for Painted Post as an assassin--for revenge. But he meets Lill Ernst and, well, visions hard to explain of lost loved ones, and where the woods "determine if'n you make it back out."
We meet the rumored Gandalark, once human, now a wizard's understudy, that feasts on the wicked in the Black Oaks of Ryland Creek, as part of another hypnotic coonhunter yarn.
November 2, 2025
Great series for old hunters
Brings back memories of days past, when hunters really knew the woods and hills, and really appreciated their time with there hounds!!
Brings back memories of days past, when hunters really knew the woods and hills, and really appreciated their time with there hounds!!
May 10, 2019
This is the thrilling continuation of a family saga that will win your heart. I loved it! It's a wonderful read full of humor, mystery, excitement and unforgettable characters set in a mythologized version of Painted Post. A small town in Upstate New York where, as the villains in this book soon learn, there is a wild heart of magic tucked into the apparently normal woods. The Legends of Ryland Creek brings together beloved characters from the earlier books and introduces several new ones, taking them and the reader along to a dark night in the woods, illuminated only by lightning, gun shots, and the headlamps of the coonhunters.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews