Search - The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (Ballad, Bk 2)

This was an excellent read. There are several books using the same characters and I cannot wait to read some more. There was a mystery but not overly gruesome. Wonderful characters and really teaches you about mountain life. I have visited Tennessee and feel like I am back there every time I picked up this book.

One of her Ballad series. These are great - lots of history about Apalachia. Fast read.

In general I like this series, but this one is a little on dark side, for my taste.

Sharyn McCrumb is an aware winning southern author. The below is from her web site:

"She is best known for her Appalachian "Ballad" novels, set in the North Carolina/Tennessee mountains, including New York Times Best Sellers She Walks These Hills and The Rosewood Casket, which deal with the issue of the vanishing wilderness, and The Ballad of Frankie Silver, the story of the first woman hanged for murder in the state of North Carolina; and The Songcatcher, a genealogy in music, tracing the author's family from 18th century Scotland to the present by following a Scots Ballad through the generations. Ghost Riders, an account of the Civil War in the mountains of western North Carolina, won the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature given by the East Tennessee Historical Society."

These are excellent books, I have read most of them.

Sharyn McCrumb has been called a writer of rare talent. If you haven't read her work, this is a great place to start.

Blessed with the "Sight" old Nora Bonesteel is the first to know about the murder-suicide in Dark Hollow, Tennessee. Four members of the Underhill famil lie dead on a run-down farm. And Sheriff Spencer Arrowood has this worried feeling that the bad things aren't over. Old Nora knows they aren't for what she saw was the kind of dying that will test the courage of the living and a sheriff's insights into country ways and hearts.

From the acclaimed author, this mystery-suspense novel is set in a beautiful town and tugs hard on the heartstrings. I was sucked in.