“Ehle’s sense of mystery in the family, its potential for great evil with the best motives, gives this quiet book strength. Like mountaineers, it has staying power.” 

—Los Angeles Times

About the Author

John Ehle (Ee-lee) is the author of seventeen books—eleven fiction and six nonfiction—including Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. His novel, The Land Breakers, first published in 1964 by Harper & Row, was the first in a seven-book series that begins with the settling of the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina in 1779.

Mr. Ehle is a member of the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame, and has received the North Carolina Award for Literature, the Thomas Wolfe Prize, and the Lillian Smith Award for Southern Fiction. He is also a five-time winner of the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction. He has been recipient of the Mayflower Award for Nonfiction, the Governor's Award for Meritorious Service, and the John Tyler Caldwell Award for the Humanities. Mr. Ehle holds honorary doctorates from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Asheville, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and Berea College.