The Unquiet Grave, Sharyn McCrumb
The Unquiet Grave, Sharyn McCrumb
9 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

The Unquiet Grave

Author: Sharyn McCrumb

Narrator: Candace Thaxton, Roger Casey

Unabridged: 10 hr 13 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/12/2017


Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of Prayers the Devil Answers and The Ballad of Tom Dooley, a “fascinating historical fiction novel you won’t be able to put down” (Bustle) based on one of the strangest murder trials in American history—the case of the Greenbrier Ghost.

Lakin, West Virginia, 1930: Following a suicide attempt and consigned to a segregated insane asylum, attorney James P.D. Gardner finds himself under the care of Dr. James Boozer. Testing a new talking cure for insanity, Boozer encourages his elderly patient to share his experiences as the first black attorney to practice law in 19th-century West Virginia. His memorable case: defending a white man on trial for the murder of his young bride—a case that the prosecution based on the testimony of a ghost.

Greenbrier, West Virginia, 1897: Beautiful, willful Zona Heaster has always lived in the mountains. Despite her mother’s misgivings, Zona marries the handsome Erasmus Trout Shue, Greenbrier’s newest resident and blacksmith. Her mother learns of her daughter’s death weeks later. A month after the funeral, Zona’s mother makes a chilling claim to the county prosecutor: her daughter was murdered, and she was told this by none other than Zona’s ghost...

With her unique and “real knack for crafting full-bodied characters and using folklore to construct compelling plots” (Booklist), Sharyn McCrumb effortlessly demonstrates her place among the finest Southern writers at work today.

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

Goodreads review by Susanne on October 10, 2017

3 Stars. “The Unquiet Grave” by Sharyn McCrumb is a fictional tale based on one of the strangest murder trials in American History which took place in 1897 – and had to do with a folklore legend of the Greenbrier Ghost. The book was extremely well researched. The book flips back and forth between two......more

Goodreads review by Norma ~ The Sisters on October 08, 2017

Traveling Sisters Group Review with Brenda, Lindsay, Susanne, and Diane! THE UNQUIET GRAVE by SHARYN MCCRUMB was an interesting, very informative, and a well-researched tale that was based on the true story of one of the strangest murder trials in American history, of an 1897 folklore legend of the G......more

Goodreads review by Lindsay L on October 09, 2017

2.5 stars This book started off strong, slowly dragged in the middle and then finished with a bang. Unfortunately, the dragging middle part was from about the 40% mark to the 97% mark. I started to lose interest around the halfway mark and had to force myself to keep reading. Had this not been a Tr......more

Goodreads review by Marjorie on August 26, 2017

Sharyn McCrumb is a long-time favorite author of mine. Her ballad books are food for my literary soul, with her hauntingly beautiful tales of the Appalachian Mountains folklore. This time she’s veered away from those ballads with a historical novel based upon a true incident. There actually was a mu......more

Goodreads review by Ioana on September 27, 2017

5 stars for the meticulous historical research McCrumb undertook and for her attention to contextual nuance and details. I was leaning towards 4 stars until I finished the novel and came upon the Author's Note, which explained the basis of The Unquiet Grave as the folktale of the Greenbrier Ghost of......more