Gods of Howl Mountain — Taylor Brown

Set in the high country of 1950s North Carolina, GODS OF HOWL MOUNTAIN is a dark and compelling novel of family secrets, whiskey-running, vengeance, and love.

Maybelline Docherty, “Granny May,” is a folk healer with a dark past. She concocts potions and cures for the people of the mountains―her powers rumored to rival those of a wood witch―while watching over her grandson, Rory Docherty, who has returned from the Korean War with a wooden leg and nightmares of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Rory runs bootleg whiskey in a high-powered car to roadhouses, brothels, and private clients in the mill town at the foot of the mountains―a hotbed of violence, moonshine, and the burgeoning sport of stock-car racing.

Granny May must help her grandson battle rival runners and federal revenue agents, snake-handling pastors, and the mystery of his own haunted past: namely, the real story behind his mother's long confinement in a mental hospital, during which she has remained completely silent.

With gritty and atmospheric prose, Taylor Brown brings to life a perilous mountain and the family who rules it, tying together past and present in one captivating narrative.