The Sky Club by Terry Roberts

                                                                              

When her worn out, dying mother tells her to leave the hardscrabble mountain farm on Big Pine and make “a life that I can’t even imagine,” plucky Jo Salter does just that. Blessed with an uncanny gift for numbers, she soon finds employment at a booming bank in booming Asheville. The year is 1929. And things are about to change.

Rich in history and detail, The Sky Club by Terry Roberts chronicles the years of boom and bust, as Jo pinballs from the proud mansions and institutions of Asheville’s elite to the smoky, steamy, jazz-fueled speakeasy atop Beaucatcher Mountain. She can hold her own in either setting, but she is increasingly drawn to the jazz and the dancing at The Sky Club—and to its manager, the mysterious Levi Arrowood--a far piece from anything her mother might have imagined.

Jo is a true mountain woman, forthright, resilient, and independent as a hog on ice.  Her story, set in a pivotal moment in history, is a delight. For those of us familiar with the area, Roberts’ s meticulous account of familiar places is an special added attraction.

I've spoken of Terry and his books before. He has kin in Madison County--a great-great (or so) grandfather lies in the cemetery next to one of our pastures. He has a real feeling for and gift of bringing this beloved place to the page. And of all his books, I believe that this one is my favorite. Jo Salter is a woman to remember.

                                                                   

That Bright Land

"Early in this gripping whodunit set in the summer of 1866 from Roberts (A Short Time to Stay Here), Zeb Vance, the real-life governor of North Carolina, meets with his Yankee nephew, Jacob Ballard, a former Union soldier and retired detective who now works for the War Department in Washington City. Someone is murdering North Carolinians who fought for the North during the Civil War, and Vance wants Ballard to apprehend the killer. Ballard travels to mountainous western North Carolina, many of whose residents were hostile to the Confederacy. There he presents himself as a government agent checking on the legitimacy of Union army veterans’ disability benefit claims. Ballard finds some correspondence between the list of those seeking the payments and the names of the murder victims—and support for Vance’s notion that the motive for the crimes is connected with an 1863 Confederate massacre of Union sympathizers. This historical approaches the high standard of Owen Parry’s mysteries set during the same period. " (from the author's website)

Sounds good, doesn't it? And a little familiar?

Terry Robert's new book is out and, drat it, I can't read it till I finish my own.  He is writing about Shelton Laurel after the Civil War and I simply can't read his book and let his vision of that time and place get into my head to war with what I'm imagining. I'm confused enough with all the historical sources.

So this isn't a review, as I haven't read it. (Yet!) Even though Terry tantalized me with the information that some of the action is set in my very neighborhood and involves his own great-something grandfather, that rascal Benjamin Franklin Freeman who is buried just above one of our pastures and who I blogged about HERE and HERE TOO.

But I thought some of you all might be interested. He has some terrific blurbs from Ron Rash, Fred Chappell, Sheila Kay Adams, and Robert Morgan over on his website HERE.

Another reason for me to hurry up and finish my book... 10 chapters to go . . .