Prayers the Devil Answers, Sharyn McCrumb
Prayers the Devil Answers, Sharyn McCrumb
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Prayers the Devil Answers

Author: Sharyn McCrumb

Narrator: Candace Thaxton

Unabridged: 10 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/10/2016


Synopsis

In Depression-era Appalachia, a desperate sheriff’s widow takes on her late husband’s job and discovers that a prayer the devil answers comes at a terrible price.

The year is 1936 and society provides no safety net for newly widowed Ellie Robbins, a woman in a small mountain town who suddenly has to support her family on her own. She’s not trained to be a teacher or a nurse, the only respectable careers for a woman. So in order to care for her children, Ellie takes the only job available: that of her late husband, the sheriff.

Ellie has long proven that she can handle herself, and her role as sheriff is largely symbolic. Yet the wariness of her male subordinates and the townspeople is palpable. Soon, as dark secrets come to light, Ellie is forced to grapple with the tenuous ties she shares with a convicted killer and the small-town superstitions that have plagued her for years.

When a condemned killer is sentenced to death for his crime, her opportunity to do so presents itself in a way she never expected. There’s one task that only a sheriff can carry out: the execution of a convicted prisoner.

Atmospheric and suspenseful, Prayers the Devil Answers is rich with the same masterful attention to historical detail and captivating folklore that you cherished in McCrumb’s renowned Ballad novels. Her luscious writing brings her unforgettable characters to life with the “pure poetry” (The New York Times Book Review) that defines her astounding novels. Prayers the Devil Answers is a mesmerizing depiction of one woman’s tenacity and strength in even the most harrowing of circumstances.

About Sharyn McCrumb

Sharyn McCrumb is the New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed Ballad novels. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Mary Frances Hobson Prize for Southern Literature, the AWA Book of the Year, and Notable Books in both The New York Times and Los Angeles Times. She was also named a Virginia Woman of History for Achievement in Literature. She lives and writes in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, fewer than one hundred miles from where her family settled in 1790.


Reviews

PRAYERS THE DEVIL ANSWERS paints a realistic picture of what life was like in the Appalachian Mountains during the Depression. It certainly wasn't easy, especially for a young widow trying to feed two growing boys like the main character, Ellie Robbins. Her husband was the town's sheriff, and when h......more

Ellendor Robbins is a wife and mother in the Appalachian Mountains in 1936. When her husband unexpectedly dies, she’s faced with raising her two young sons alone. She must decide whether to return to her brother-in-law’s home as a charity relative or try to take on her husband’s job, which was sheri......more

Goodreads review by Nancy

I found this historical fiction book extremely disappointing, as I have read other McCrumb books and have liked her Appalachia set novels in the past. The story started promisingly with six girls participating in an old fashioned Dumb Supper tradition, a ritual they thought would help them find husb......more