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Refuge
Early one morning in 1929, Mary Seneca Steele spontaneously packs a suitcase, gathers up her son and daughter, and steals away in her abusive and dissolute husband’s brand new Auburn Phaeton automobile leaving her privileged life in Charleston behind. It is the beginning of a journey of enlightenment that leads Mary “Sen” to the mountains and mysteries of Appalachia where she will learn unexpected family secrets, create a new life for herself and her children, and finally experience love and happiness before tragedy will once again test her.
Written by an authentic Southern voice, Dot Jackson has spun a story that will captivate readers looking for an entertaining saga of self-discovery, family, love, loss and redemption.
Written by an authentic Southern voice, Dot Jackson has spun a story that will captivate readers looking for an entertaining saga of self-discovery, family, love, loss and redemption.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
3455 people are currently reading
2610 people want to read
About the author
Dot Jackson
7 books54 followersDot Jackson was born to Appalachian parents in Miami in 1932, where she later gave up her college studies of music and dance to become a writer. She died in 2016.
Her lifelong career in newspapers drew her to the mountain regions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, where she covered murder trials, snake-handling prayer meetings, and some of the hardest-fought environmental battles of our times.
Her work garnered Jackson several Pulitzer Prize nominations and a National Conservation Writer of the Year award. She also collaborated on several acclaimed books of non-fiction.
She was co-founder and on-site manager of the Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. Refuge was Dot Jackson’s first novel.
Her lifelong career in newspapers drew her to the mountain regions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, where she covered murder trials, snake-handling prayer meetings, and some of the hardest-fought environmental battles of our times.
Her work garnered Jackson several Pulitzer Prize nominations and a National Conservation Writer of the Year award. She also collaborated on several acclaimed books of non-fiction.
She was co-founder and on-site manager of the Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. Refuge was Dot Jackson’s first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 346 reviews
May 19, 2020
Historical fiction about life in the Appalachians, primarily in the late 1920’s to 1940’s. A young mother living in Charleston takes her two children and leaves her abusive husband to find her deceased father’s relatives in the Carolina mountains. Mary Seneca Steele moves into an old abandoned house and develops a romantic relationship with a cousin. It is a story of love, land, family, and finding a sense of home. This book is based on a real situation from the author’s family history, what she calls “an adventure of the heart.”
Mary Seneca has never experienced the type of support network she finds in this small mountain region. She develops an immediate rapport with her extended family. She strives to find her place in the world and struggles to live off the land. She watches her children adapt to a new life. The people in the area help them learn the necessary skills. It portrays an authentic sense of community.
The characters are vivid. I especially enjoyed Aunt Panama (also called Panammer or Nam), a woman in her eighties with a feisty, no-nonsense, take-charge personality. The dialect is not too severe, but enough to provide a flavor for the language of the area. The beginning, middle, and climax of the novel are extremely well-crafted. The ending chapters are not quite as strong, trailing off through the end of Mary Seneca’s life. It is too bad this work is not more widely known. It is wonderful piece of writing.
Mary Seneca has never experienced the type of support network she finds in this small mountain region. She develops an immediate rapport with her extended family. She strives to find her place in the world and struggles to live off the land. She watches her children adapt to a new life. The people in the area help them learn the necessary skills. It portrays an authentic sense of community.
The characters are vivid. I especially enjoyed Aunt Panama (also called Panammer or Nam), a woman in her eighties with a feisty, no-nonsense, take-charge personality. The dialect is not too severe, but enough to provide a flavor for the language of the area. The beginning, middle, and climax of the novel are extremely well-crafted. The ending chapters are not quite as strong, trailing off through the end of Mary Seneca’s life. It is too bad this work is not more widely known. It is wonderful piece of writing.
November 6, 2023
The author of this novel was a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist based in Charlotte, NC. This was her only work of fiction. It was very loosely based on a rumor of a forbidden love between cousins in her own family that created a scandal and precipitated a lot of tragedy.
Mary Seneca Steele grew up in Charleston, but her father had Appalacian roots and told her stories of her relatives in the hills of NC. He died when she was 10, but as an adult in a bad marriage, she took her 2 children and escaped to her unknown home and relatives there. She found her home and what was left of her family, fell in love with the area, the house, and incidentally, her cousin, Ben Aaron Steele. What follows is by turns rip-roaring action, hard work, heartbreak, family alliances, and a story that made sense for the times during the Depression. I enjoyed every word and at times found it hard to put aside.
Too sad that Dot Jackson died before writing more novels, she ranks right up there as a great storyteller.
Mary Seneca Steele grew up in Charleston, but her father had Appalacian roots and told her stories of her relatives in the hills of NC. He died when she was 10, but as an adult in a bad marriage, she took her 2 children and escaped to her unknown home and relatives there. She found her home and what was left of her family, fell in love with the area, the house, and incidentally, her cousin, Ben Aaron Steele. What follows is by turns rip-roaring action, hard work, heartbreak, family alliances, and a story that made sense for the times during the Depression. I enjoyed every word and at times found it hard to put aside.
Too sad that Dot Jackson died before writing more novels, she ranks right up there as a great storyteller.
November 26, 2023
Mary Seneca Steele grew up in the genteel society of Charleston, but she loved hearing her fiddle-playing father tell her stories about his childhood in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. After the death of her father and an abusive marriage, Mary Sen decided she had to leave Charleston with her two children. She headed for the Caney Valley to meet her father's cousins and find The Birches, her father's family home.
It's a new way of life for Mary Sen, and she loves the simple joys of living close to nature, the physical work, and meeting her relatives. But there are also painful events that occur. Although Appalachia has its challenges, Mary Sen has found her refuge.
The book is narrated by Mary Sen with humor and lots of heart. The author includes lovely descriptions of the Appalachian landscapes with its beautiful flora and fauna. There is enough Appalachian dialogue, folklore, and music in the book to give it a vivid sense of place without being overwhelming. I enjoyed the great Southern storytelling by Dot Johnson.
It's a new way of life for Mary Sen, and she loves the simple joys of living close to nature, the physical work, and meeting her relatives. But there are also painful events that occur. Although Appalachia has its challenges, Mary Sen has found her refuge.
The book is narrated by Mary Sen with humor and lots of heart. The author includes lovely descriptions of the Appalachian landscapes with its beautiful flora and fauna. There is enough Appalachian dialogue, folklore, and music in the book to give it a vivid sense of place without being overwhelming. I enjoyed the great Southern storytelling by Dot Johnson.
November 11, 2023
Refuge by Dot Jackson is a master class in storytelling. Written many years before it was published, it’s loosely based on real life events that happened within her family.
Our protagonist is Mary Seneca Steel, known better as Mary Sen. She was born and raised in the wealthy privilege of Charleston in the early twentieth century. Her life changes dramatically when she leaves the milksop she married, takes the kids and his brand-new Auburn Phaeton, and heads for the hills. That she can’t drive only adds to the story. She somehow frog hops to the mountains of North Carolina, to the community where her father was raised. What unfolds is an exhilarating story. Mary Sen overcomes basic physical challenges (such as learning how to light a fire) to embrace the culture, food, music, language and geography. There’s a doomed love affair, a whole cast of extraordinary characters and a celebration of a time and place that has long gone. Dot Jackson looked at a way of life that was considered old and unfashionable, gave it relevance and made it exciting. Her love of Appalachia shines through every page. The storytelling and humour are spellbinding.
Ron Rash had this to say about it:
''Refuge is a wonderful story about the need to find one’s place in the world- and the price paid to remain there. With her narrative gift and keen ear for Appalachian speech, Dot Jackson gives her readers a beautifully rendered portrait of a lost time and place.''
An absolute pleasure to read, it's up there with my all time favourites.
Our protagonist is Mary Seneca Steel, known better as Mary Sen. She was born and raised in the wealthy privilege of Charleston in the early twentieth century. Her life changes dramatically when she leaves the milksop she married, takes the kids and his brand-new Auburn Phaeton, and heads for the hills. That she can’t drive only adds to the story. She somehow frog hops to the mountains of North Carolina, to the community where her father was raised. What unfolds is an exhilarating story. Mary Sen overcomes basic physical challenges (such as learning how to light a fire) to embrace the culture, food, music, language and geography. There’s a doomed love affair, a whole cast of extraordinary characters and a celebration of a time and place that has long gone. Dot Jackson looked at a way of life that was considered old and unfashionable, gave it relevance and made it exciting. Her love of Appalachia shines through every page. The storytelling and humour are spellbinding.
Ron Rash had this to say about it:
''Refuge is a wonderful story about the need to find one’s place in the world- and the price paid to remain there. With her narrative gift and keen ear for Appalachian speech, Dot Jackson gives her readers a beautifully rendered portrait of a lost time and place.''
An absolute pleasure to read, it's up there with my all time favourites.
December 14, 2016
Sorry to hear of Dot Jackson's passing. She was an amazing person. If you haven't read her novel, Refuge, do so. now. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news...
September 30, 2020
Very seldom does a book touch my heart as much as this one. It tells of a people who are near and dear to my heart. A time and a place when life was simpler. A place of beauty and wonder. A love story. Family. It saddens me to discover that this author has passed on and this is her only novel. Her voice silenced. I believe she would have been one of my favorite authors. I know she would! This book is so very special!
January 27, 2021
A lesson in why I should not let a couple good first chapters compel me to finish a book. Almost like it was two different books - a few chapters that drew me in - setting, characters and prose. And then a shift to overly sentimental, unengaging and self-absorbed. I kept waiting for the shift back, but it didn’t come.
December 1, 2023
There were lots of things that bothered me about this book, but in the end, it was a four star read. I think the book has flaws, but then so do people that we love. It was interesting, sometimes fascinating, sometimes puzzling but never boring, always engaging. I loved some of the descriptive passages and the mentions of local flora and fauna. If I say more about it, I would be afraid of letting too much go that should be discovered through reading. If you don’t mind being frustrated by some loose threads, some questionable behavior and some magical happenings, jump right into this story and hold on for the ride.
March 10, 2021
I was going to give it a 3 star, but the more I thought about it, I bumped it to a 2 star. There were parts of the book where it was hard to follow the story and narration with the dialect, keep track of each character and which town they were in, and who was family and who wasn’t. The author used terms that today’s reader who didn’t grow up in Appalachia during this period wouldn’t know.
Did it bother anybody else the narrator had to continually chant Ben Aaron, Ben Aaron, Ben Aaron. Just call him Ben! The middle dragged where it seemed that scenes and setting were repeated. How many times does the river need to be described in great detail? I guess I kept reading to see where the relationship between the two main characters ends up.
Did it bother anybody else the narrator had to continually chant Ben Aaron, Ben Aaron, Ben Aaron. Just call him Ben! The middle dragged where it seemed that scenes and setting were repeated. How many times does the river need to be described in great detail? I guess I kept reading to see where the relationship between the two main characters ends up.
November 19, 2023
Review to follow. Top notch choice by moderator Dave - you made my week reading this 😊
May 20, 2025
Another favorite. This is her only novel unfortunately.
January 17, 2021
I stumbled upon this book in an Amazon kindle “daily deals” email and let me say—what a wonderful find. This book was everything I needed right now. Love, loss, inner peace, finding one’s center.
It is beautifully written, too. You feel like you’re actually there.
It is beautifully written, too. You feel like you’re actually there.
February 23, 2016
Readable, but predictable, with a gratuitous amount of tragedy sprinkled throughout, and a silly element of psychic phenomenon. There is also a rather high creep factor to it when you consider the family tree and subsequent relationships. Not recommended.
September 6, 2024
3.5 stars. Seneca escapes a cruel, drunk husband in Charleston to spend time on a family farm in west NC. She falls in love with the farm life and new family she has acquired.
October 11, 2020
Rufuge by Dot Jackson is a thought provoking novel of historical fiction that depicts life in the 1920s and 30's. Seneca Steel is born and raised in Charleston, SC but has always been curious about her father's people in Appalachia. She spends some years there and falls in love with the place and it's people. This novel ultimately becomes a lesson in what happens when you make bad choices. Spoilers below.
Seneca, feeling a bit lonely agrees to marry the spoiled and self important "Foots" even though she suspects that he is only marrying her for her money. Not long after the marriage, Foots becomes abusive. Seneca is miserable, but chooses not to act because at that time period divorce was just not done. When Foots begins to threaten the children and has wasted most of Seneca's fortune she packs the kids up and heads for her father's "people" up in the mountains.
When Seneca arrives in Caney Forks, she meets family members she had only heard about it tales from her long dead father. They make her right at home and she is happy to stay at the family home called The Birches. This was my favorite part of the book. I loved learning about the culture and how self sufficient people were in that time. But soon after, Seneca falls in love with her already married cousin. I spent most of the reading thinking, is she really crushing on her cousin?? Ben Aaron is a great character, but the decision to act on her feelings lead to the death of Seneca's cousin, aunt, friend and ultimately the town in general. This drives Seneca back to South Carolina.
Once reunited with Foots, Seneca takes no nonsense. When the children are grown, she goes back to The Birches. By this point all of the beloved characters there have died and excluding a few visits and some animal friends, Seneca is ultimately alone with the graves of the people she loved. This part was very bleak and depressing. Seneca chooses to live her life alone on the mountain instead of being a part of her grandchildren's lives. I did not enjoy the end, but kept reading in hopes that things would get better for Seneca. I gave this book 3 stars, because I enjoyed the first half, but felt the last third or so of the book was too sad and a bit boring.
Seneca, feeling a bit lonely agrees to marry the spoiled and self important "Foots" even though she suspects that he is only marrying her for her money. Not long after the marriage, Foots becomes abusive. Seneca is miserable, but chooses not to act because at that time period divorce was just not done. When Foots begins to threaten the children and has wasted most of Seneca's fortune she packs the kids up and heads for her father's "people" up in the mountains.
When Seneca arrives in Caney Forks, she meets family members she had only heard about it tales from her long dead father. They make her right at home and she is happy to stay at the family home called The Birches. This was my favorite part of the book. I loved learning about the culture and how self sufficient people were in that time. But soon after, Seneca falls in love with her already married cousin. I spent most of the reading thinking, is she really crushing on her cousin?? Ben Aaron is a great character, but the decision to act on her feelings lead to the death of Seneca's cousin, aunt, friend and ultimately the town in general. This drives Seneca back to South Carolina.
Once reunited with Foots, Seneca takes no nonsense. When the children are grown, she goes back to The Birches. By this point all of the beloved characters there have died and excluding a few visits and some animal friends, Seneca is ultimately alone with the graves of the people she loved. This part was very bleak and depressing. Seneca chooses to live her life alone on the mountain instead of being a part of her grandchildren's lives. I did not enjoy the end, but kept reading in hopes that things would get better for Seneca. I gave this book 3 stars, because I enjoyed the first half, but felt the last third or so of the book was too sad and a bit boring.
August 23, 2013
This was one of the best books I've read in a long time. It is chosen as this year's community read for our county's literary festival. As testimony to how good it was, my husband and I read it aloud cover-to-cover in two nights! The story begins in 1929 and unfolds in the Appalachian Mountains. Mary Seneca grows up never knowing her father's family and when her world falls apart as a young mother, she escapes an abusive marriage with her two children by setting out in her husband's sports car to find refuge. Knowing that Foots, her husband, will be furious about her taking the car and to top it off she has never learned to drive makes the trip quite an adventure. She decides it is time to meet her kinfolk and heads to the mountains. The family she meets has all sorts of secrets and she learns to live off the land, something she has never before had to do growing up in high society. I enjoyed the descriptive writing and character dialog. I also admired Mary's courage and strength as she sets out to make a new life. This is a suspenseful story that includes plenty of mountain folklore along with a tragic romance. I highly recommend it and can't wait for the community discussion.
July 17, 2021
3.5ish. I so wanted to love this. Isn’t everyone supposed to love Dot Jackson? This was just a mediocre story. The characters were fairly flat and I didn’t feel very connected. Some small events took up pages and major, heartbreaking events barely got a paragraph. The scenery was interesting but a better editor would have made more sense of it all. The action scenes, with the exception of the dancing, were discombobulated and lacked cohesion.
July 18, 2021
Loved this narrator and wanted to love this book. Started great but just went to stories that never built to much. Loved the main character. Just wish it had something to keep my attention 😬
January 5, 2023
Wow!
What a beautiful story! Now I want to go live in a big old house in the middle of nowhere!
What a beautiful story! Now I want to go live in a big old house in the middle of nowhere!
July 24, 2021
I loved Elizabeth Wiley's reading on the audiobook!
Refuge is a family saga set in the deep south of the United States in 1929. It's an intimate first-person account of Mary Seneca Steele.
When the novel begins and ends, Mary "Sen" is an old woman living in the hills of Appalachia. Raised in the high-society Charleston of her mother, Sen eventually found her place in remote Caney Fork, with her father's people. There was a heap of scandal and tragedy and death along the way. The book is steeped in Southern gothic influences and Appalachian culture. I loved author Dot Jackson's vivid descriptions of the natural world and Sen's mystical connection to the old homestead and its "haints".
1920s - Those Beautiful Clog Dancing Days in Appalachia (youtube)
The Best Mountain Fiddler I Ever Heard (youtube)
I would have been satisfied and don't think I would have missed much if I'd stopped listening just short of the end. The end was a bit different.
I listened to the audiobook read by Elizabeth Wiley, courtesy of the public library.
Around the year in 52 books challenge notes:
18. related to "Past, Present, Future" - Book 1
Refuge is a family saga set in the deep south of the United States in 1929. It's an intimate first-person account of Mary Seneca Steele.
When the novel begins and ends, Mary "Sen" is an old woman living in the hills of Appalachia. Raised in the high-society Charleston of her mother, Sen eventually found her place in remote Caney Fork, with her father's people. There was a heap of scandal and tragedy and death along the way. The book is steeped in Southern gothic influences and Appalachian culture. I loved author Dot Jackson's vivid descriptions of the natural world and Sen's mystical connection to the old homestead and its "haints".
1920s - Those Beautiful Clog Dancing Days in Appalachia (youtube)
The Best Mountain Fiddler I Ever Heard (youtube)
I would have been satisfied and don't think I would have missed much if I'd stopped listening just short of the end. The end was a bit different.
I listened to the audiobook read by Elizabeth Wiley, courtesy of the public library.
Around the year in 52 books challenge notes:
18. related to "Past, Present, Future" - Book 1
October 25, 2021
This heart of this story takes place in mid 1900's. Seneca Steele loses her beloved father when she is a young girl. Her father was from Caney Fork, a tiny place in Southern Appalachia. Sen was mesmerized by his stories and always wanted to visit, but her mother, high society from Charleston, would not allow it. A decade or so later, Sen marries Foots, the youngest member of a ranking family with no money. He sets out to spend all of Sen's inheritance. He somehow fathers two children with Sen -- Pet and Hugh -- that he has no use for and who have no use for him. Then he starts to hit Sen. When all the money is gone and she has sold the very last valuable she has, she comes home to find he has purchased an expensive sports car on time. That was the last straw. In the middle of the night, Sen grabs the kids and the car and heads for the Caney Fork.
Sen finds the family homestead ("the Birches"), wrecks the car and trades it for a mule and a cow, and falls in love with her married cousin Ben Aaron. After about a year, disaster strikes. Sen soon finds herself back Charleston with Foots and the kids. But things are different. She takes control and Foots recedes for a few years. The kids grow up. Pet marries and Hugh goes off to fight in WWII. Sen finds herself back at the Birches. Hugh makes a visit when on leave before going off to the Pacific. Sen never returns to Charleston but lives with her memories and a bird.
It appears that this only novel written by Dot Jackson is based on a family story kept secret for years. Jackson was a journalist. She died a few years after the book was first published.
Sen finds the family homestead ("the Birches"), wrecks the car and trades it for a mule and a cow, and falls in love with her married cousin Ben Aaron. After about a year, disaster strikes. Sen soon finds herself back Charleston with Foots and the kids. But things are different. She takes control and Foots recedes for a few years. The kids grow up. Pet marries and Hugh goes off to fight in WWII. Sen finds herself back at the Birches. Hugh makes a visit when on leave before going off to the Pacific. Sen never returns to Charleston but lives with her memories and a bird.
It appears that this only novel written by Dot Jackson is based on a family story kept secret for years. Jackson was a journalist. She died a few years after the book was first published.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 16, 2020
Onto my list of best books
If you like to go live in a book, this is the one for you. The characters are well developed and will stay with the reader long after the last page. It is a story of laughter and unthinkable tears. Dot Jackson writes the Southern accent as it sounds in various regions of the Carolinas better than any author I have read. She knows how to create a sense of joy and longing with her words. I highly recommend it to any reader who loves the power of words to create time and place.
If you like to go live in a book, this is the one for you. The characters are well developed and will stay with the reader long after the last page. It is a story of laughter and unthinkable tears. Dot Jackson writes the Southern accent as it sounds in various regions of the Carolinas better than any author I have read. She knows how to create a sense of joy and longing with her words. I highly recommend it to any reader who loves the power of words to create time and place.
April 8, 2013
I.LOVE.THIS.BOOK! Great detail of a life in the Blue Ridge Mountains, family interactions, love of land and family, emotional roller-coaster of decision making and how those decisions not only affect the main character, Mary Seneca, but her immediate and extended family members. It's a book the reader will not want to end but the ending is a surprise and perfect. Love, love, love this book - will re-read it again!
August 15, 2021
Set in the 1930s Appalachia, Mary decides she's had a bellyful of her abusive husband. She takes her kids, and the new car her husband just bought with her money, leaves Charleston, and heads off to find her ancestral home up a hollow in the Blue Mountains. She carves out a life there, and there are secrets and tragedy mixed in with the grounded love of family and place. Very well written. This one stuck with me.
November 13, 2020
A true song of the south
A thoroughly engaging story, this does not feel like one.
It feels like a recollection; a remembering of feelings, happenings, families, a treasured place, and a life lived instinctively.
The realness of unique characters, the details of daily life, and the appreciation of the culture and beauty of these mountains, drew me in, and took me back to my other home.
Best of all, this tale unfolds completely unpredictably!
Thank you for a lovely read.🙏🏼
A thoroughly engaging story, this does not feel like one.
It feels like a recollection; a remembering of feelings, happenings, families, a treasured place, and a life lived instinctively.
The realness of unique characters, the details of daily life, and the appreciation of the culture and beauty of these mountains, drew me in, and took me back to my other home.
Best of all, this tale unfolds completely unpredictably!
Thank you for a lovely read.🙏🏼
March 10, 2019
Great book
This is one of the best books I have ever read. I loved the dialect, which I usually don't. Most authors try to spell the way Appalachian people speak and it is ridiculous to me. Ms. Jackson hit the mark almost perfectly every time. The story made me laugh and cry and feel all the emotions in between.
This is one of the best books I have ever read. I loved the dialect, which I usually don't. Most authors try to spell the way Appalachian people speak and it is ridiculous to me. Ms. Jackson hit the mark almost perfectly every time. The story made me laugh and cry and feel all the emotions in between.
September 6, 2020
Beautiful! Poignant! Heart wrenching!
Wow. Just wow. This lady really knows how to write. Her descriptions, her characters.. everything so vividly written about. I felt that I was there!
Wow. Just wow. This lady really knows how to write. Her descriptions, her characters.. everything so vividly written about. I felt that I was there!
May 21, 2022
Mary Seneca Steele is very close to her father, Mackey. Mackey is from Appalachia and speaks longingly of his family left behind. Not clear why he left. Most of the family stayed forever, although it was a tough life. Mary’s mother looks down on Mackey’s family so they never visit. Mary’s mother wants her to make a ‘good’ marriage so she weds a lazy and abusive man from a so-called good family. Mary finally gets fed up and takes off, with her two small children, to her father’s kin up in the mountains. She looks like her late grandmother, Daisy, and is welcomed by all. She moves in to Daisy’s abandoned house. She immediately drops her city ways and speaks with the mountain dialect and jumps right in to the country chores. It’s a hard life, better than the life she left, but it is overwhelmingly a sad book.
Not sure how many stars but I am stepping it up because the book kept me engrossed with the characters and the hard country life was vividly written.
Not sure how many stars but I am stepping it up because the book kept me engrossed with the characters and the hard country life was vividly written.
December 10, 2023
Great southern coast and Appalachian read. There were points where it felt a little slow and hard to see where it might be going….but that last 30% of the book…so strong. I left feeling I knew the characters, felt their joys and pain. Such a strong telling and contrast between the coastal wealth/society and the Appalachian world. Such richness in the Appalachian life that feeds the soul; and sadness at seeing the modern day “conveniences” erode that. There were moments early in the book where I wondered about continuing as it was slow going but in so glad I did, and wish we had more fiction from this author.
March 21, 2022
My second Dot Jackson book. Set in both Charleston and the mountains of North Carolina, Mary Seneca Steele goes to find her father’s kin at a low point in her life and discovers her past and her present are wrapped with an interesting group that live, love and fight for the land.
Entertaining read.
Entertaining read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 346 reviews