Going to the Water

Release date November 9, 2021

At the first of July, I visited the Nantahala River, where my new novel, Going to the Water, is set. This place is so rich with history. Nantahala is a Cherokee word that means land of the new day sun. Because the gorge’s steep walls, noon is the only time the sun shines fully in the area. At one time before the damn was built, many communities, such as Aquone existed. At one point, Aquone was the stagecoach stop between Asheville and Murphy North Carolina. When the Cherokee was being rounded up to march the Trail of Tears, they were kept in Camp Scott located at the mouth of Wine Spring Creek. The area is now covered by Nantahala Lake.

Going to the Water is set in the present and is the first in a trilogy that occupies my fictional Nantahala. This is a wonderful weekend trip from Atlanta that loosens your shoulders and relaxes your face muscles. If you would like to read more history of the area click here.

A Place and a Story That Will Take Your Breath Away
Mama always said our lives were ghost stories―metaphors―to hide the truth behind.

And so begins the struggle Isla Weehunt―wife of wealthy chicken farmer, Scott Weehunt―encounters to keep her family buried in the past and her secrets well hidden. But plans, no matter how well thought out, have a way of taking their own paths.

Isla receives a call late one Friday night that rocks her perfectly crafted life. Velvet, her estranged sister of seventeen years, has died in what appears to be an arson, leaving behind a teenage son, Randal, and a tangled mess of murder and chaos. Isla never thought she would return to Nantahala, to the sweet, rugged gorge of her childhood. And taking her nephew into her life was certainly never on her agenda. The thought of conversing with her mother, devastated by Alzheimer’s, seems out of reach.

But there are questions that need answering about Velvet’s death and hidden stories that go back generations. Isla’s life will change whether she embraces it or not.