About This Book
Hellebore, the sequel to William F. Kaiser's popular Bloodroot: A Novel of the Civil War, is the story of the feudin', fightin', and fussin' that tore up the people of Appalachia after the American Civil War. Beset by bushwhackers, carpetbaggers, and scalawags, the Truehill family--Billy Jack and Elvira May--are tempted, tormented, and torn by the historic events of the postwar occupation of the Southern states by Union army troops. Mountain men who served in either the Confederate army or the Union army return home to continue the war--the beginning of the family feuds that still echo today in remote corners of the mountains. The events in this novel, including the incursion of the Ku Klux Klan into western North Carolina, are real, as are some of the historical characters. Other characters, including Billy Jack and Elvira May, are based upon real people of the time.
