The Saints of Swallow Hill, Donna Everhart
The Saints of Swallow Hill, Donna Everhart
3 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

The Saints of Swallow Hill

Author: Donna Everhart

Narrator: Amy Melissa Bentley

Unabridged: 12 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/25/2022

Categories: Fiction, Sagas, Southern


Synopsis

During the Great Depression, labor camps crop up in remote areas throughout the American South. Destitute workers live under terrible conditions. Trapped in these isolated locations, workers are entirely dependent on the often greedy, abusive camp owners who provide food and housing at grossly inflated prices. But for the most desperate among America's vast unemployed, these camps are often the last and only option.

This much is true for three individuals whose lives intersect in the deep woods of Georgia at the Swallow Hill turpentine camp in 1932. For Rae Lynn Cobb, a young woman disguised as a man, Swallow Hill offers distance and anonymity from those who would wrongly imprison her for killing her husband. For a charming bachelor named Del Reese, it's a place where backbreaking work might drown out memories of a recent trauma.

But Swallow Hill is no easy haven. The camp is ruled by a sadistic boss named Crow and the greedy commissary owner Otis Riddle, a man who takes out his frustrations on his wife, Cornelia. Del and "Ray Cobb" are tested as they struggle to survive harsh, brutal conditions. As Rae Lynn forges a deeper friendship with Del and Cornelia, she begins to envision a path out of the camp. But she will have to come to terms with her past before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again . . .

About Donna Everhart

Donna Everhart is a USA Today bestselling author known for vividly evoking the complexities of the heart and the gritty fascination of the American South in her acclaimed novels. She is the recipient of the prestigious SELA Outstanding Southeastern Author Award from the Southeastern Library Association, and her novels have been SIBA Okra Picks, Indie Next Picks, and Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books selections. Born and raised in Raleigh, she has stayed close to her hometown for much of her life and now lives just an hour away in Dunn, North Carolina.


Reviews

4.5 stars. If there was nothing else, I could say I learned something - why North Carolina is called the Tar Heel State and a good bit about the history of turpentining in the South around the depression. But I certainly got more than learning some facts. I found the same sense of place and time, cha......more

Donna Everhart is one of my favorite authors, especially North Carolina authors. She took a slightly different direction with this story, and I loved it. In case you were wondering why on earth my name is “Tar Heel” reader, this book has the earliest explanation for why the term “Tar Heel” is tied to......more

A gritty southern noir one. 1932. North Carolina. The depression has hit. Jobs are hard to come by. Turpentining is the one industry that seems to stay afloat. Barely. Rae Cobb has just lost her husband and looks to Swallow Hill Camp to do some turpentining. The only thing she knows how to do. But she......more