“Walt Larimore isn't just a great storyteller. He paints word pictures that linger like country wood smoke—so strong you can't get it out of your mind. Once you experience Hazel Creek, you'll never want to leave.”
Description
In a new novel from award-winning author Walt Larimore, a loving rural family struggles to survive tragedy and cope with the invasion of modern ways in the 1920s.
In the Great Smoky Mountains wilderness in 1925, Nathan and Callie Randolph, with their five unique daughters, struggle to maintain their farm, forests, family, and faith against a menacing business and an evil company manager trying to pilfer their land and clear cut their forest.
As loggers invade the mountains, death touches the family, and hardship and loss confront them again and again; fifteen-year-old Abbie Randolph becomes mother to her sisters and leans on her faith to guide her through the emotional wilderness of changing times. With the march of the industrial age, the roaring twenties, Prohibition, the increasing momentum for national parks, and the onslaught of a modern world, the traditional life and ways of the mountaineers were about to change forever.
Featuring a cast of colorful characters, including independent and earnest mountain families, a murderous lumber company manager, Cherokee Indians, a band of gypsies, desperados, lumbermen, moonshiners, a world-famous writer, and Civil War heroes, Hazel Creek reveals a gripping struggle of good and evil during an eruption of violence.
A beloved family physician, Walt Larimore is the perfect author for this novel of love, loss, and injury that illuminates the enduring power of faith.
Reviews
“This captivating story took me to a simpler time when humans were closer to creation and to the creator. I found in it echoes of Christian classics—Catherine Marshall's Christy, for one—and that puts Larimore's book in the best of company. Being in the Great Smoky Mountains wilderness when it was still wild nourished my soul!"
“A powerful, heartwarming story of courage, love, and faith, Hazel Creek is sure to leave the reader ready for a sentimental journey into an era and region that has charmed the hearts of millions.”
“A compelling story of courage and faith.”