Helen Plum Library

The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival....

"In the ruggedness of the beautiful Kentucky mountains, Honey Lovett has always known that the old ways can make a hard life harder. As the daughter of the famed blue-skinned, Troublesome Creek packhorse librarian, Honey and her family have been hiding from the law all her life. But when her mother and father are imprisoned, Honey realizes she must fight to stay free, or risk being sent away for good. Picking up her mother's old packhorse library...

Following a family tragedy, siblings Lou and Oz must leave New York and adjust to life in the Virginia mountains—but just as the farm begins to feel like home, they'll have to defend it from a dark threat in this New York Times bestselling coming-of-age story.
Precocious twelve-year-old Louisa Mae Cardinal lives in the hectic New York City of 1940 with her family. Then tragedy strikes—and Lou and her younger brother, Oz, must...

"A love story set in the foothills of Appalachia about two very different people--Owen, from Kentucky, and Alma, the daughter of Bosnian immigrants--navigating the entanglements of class and identify in an America coming apart at the seams."-- In the run-up to the 2016 election, aspiring writer Owen Callahan moves back to Kentucky to live with his Trump-supporting uncle and grandfather. He takes a job as a groundskeeper at a small local college,...

In this novel a mother and a daughter try to do right by a town and each other before it is too late. What is happening in Acker's Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas...

Avery Robinson decided to be a physician after helplessly watching her mother lose a battle with a terrible disease. Now, at risk for developing the same illness, Avery guards her heart from love. Contract Wes Garrett is hiking the Appalachian trail when an illness fells him and he collapses on Avery's doorstep Contractor Wes Mathews is hiking the Appalachian Trail in honor of his recently deceased best friend when he falls terribly ill when he's...

Ruthie and her mother wonder how they will fulfill their obligation of getting the perfect Christmas tree to the town for the holiday celebration, since Papa has left the Appalachian area to go to war

From the acclaimed, New York Times bestselling award-winning author of Serena and The Cove, thirty of his finest short stories, collected in one volume. No one captures the complexities of Appalachia-a rugged, brutal landscape of exquisite beauty-as evocatively and indelibly as author and poet Ron Rash. Winner of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, two O Henry prizes, and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, Rash brilliantly illuminates...

"Everyone in Blackberry Falls knows that Tabitha Stolfus is heir to her daed's wood carving company. To find a man who values more than her purse, Tabitha creates an ad and sends it far from home. But from her first meeting with handsome would-be groom Matthew King, Tabitha realizes this may not be the uncomplicated arrangement she expected. Matthew's true desire is an apprenticeship, not a frau. A talented woodworker, he longs to study with the great...

Suspected of attacking a boy from town and determined to protect her secrets and her twin sister, Jo flees into the woods, where she discovers the truth behind her mother's disappearance fifteen years ago