Hawk Spencer and Elizabeth MacNeal are now married and enjoying married life again. After only a week of being married Hawk and Sequatchie accompany Paul Anderson and Rhonda Harper to Williamsburg so they can be married.

Meanwhile, in Williamsburg Jacob Spencer, Hawk's son, celebrates his sixteenth birthday. Jacob also falls for Annabelle Denton. A few days after his birthday Hawk arrives and asks Jacob to go back to Watauga with him. Jacob can't believe his father even asked after he had abandoned him and left him with his grandparents for sixteen years and now finally wants to be apart of his life. Hawk tries to explain that he had to leave because he was mad at God for taking Jacob's mother, he also explains that now he is finally right with God. Jacob refuses at first until he is betrayed, then Sequatchie proposes a pact and Jacob agrees. Jacob's part of the pact is to go to Watauga for a reasonable amount of time and Sequatchie's part is to take him home after the time period.

It starts out rocky but things turn for the better when Jacob falls in love with Abigail Stevens, the bad part is Andrew MacNeal, his step brother, is also in love with her. The competition goes on for a while and Abigail enjoys the attention of the two young men but she knows she has to choose. Will Abigail's decision separate the family further?

All the while, Hawk becomes sheriff of Watauga and struggles to keep the frontier from having a full-scale war with the Cherokee.

This is a great sequel to the first book. I loved the continuing story of Elizabeth and Hawk. I can't wait to read the rest of the series. If you've read the first book and liked it I strongly suggest this one.

Beyond the Quiet Hills is an exelent book and I hope Gilbert Morris writes many more. I love his Writing

An excellent continuation of the Spirit of Appalachia series. It continues on with Hawk and Elizabeth's life after Hawk goes back to his family in the East to retrieve his son, whom he hopes will forgive him of his mistake of leaving him with his grandparents after his wife dies. It's a super book and I encourage all to read it!

Just spent three days fishing in the GSMNP in eastern Tennessee, and found Mr. Jacobs book to be right on target. A lot of the information can be found from local flyshops, but his book really helped plan our trip in advance. Coupling this book with local advice is a formula for success.

"Trout Streams of Southern Appalachia" is an outstanding book for people who want to fish for trout in the Appalachian Mountain regions of Georgia, Kentucky, North and South Carolina and Tennessee. It gives locations, access points, fly patterns and hatches for the best trout streams in the South. It is well written and the reader can see that the author put in many hours of research in writing this book. I just wish there were more books written on this subject.

This is the incredible story of the decade of labour unrest(1912-1922) known as 'The Mine wars". And real wars they were, in which hunreds and sometime thousands of armed man opposed each other in the vallies of West Virginia. The author is not a great writer or stilist, but he witnessed much of the events in a variety of capacities (State Attorney General, among others) and he has the good sense to let the facts speak for themselves. This part of American history is as shocking as it is fascinating and richly deserves the attention Lee has given to it.

In plain, unvarnished style, Lee relates the history of greed and evil by the outside capital interests who came into West Virginia to rape and pillage. The miners wouldn't stand for it, and war broke out.

The president had to declare martial law - twice.

While Lee doesn't exactly have a beautiful, rolling style, he tells it like it was; he was there.

If you want to know about the true character of the Appalachian people, read this book.

This is the most unbiased telling of the struggles in West Virginia between the coal operators and the union. Mr. Lee offers an impartial insider's view of the birth (and or death) of the real West Virginia.

Dr. Waller attempts to get past the "traditional accounts", usually assembled from the newspaper and popular accounts of the time, but falls into one error which confounds the rest of her presentation: she found a great deal of information for the Hatfield family and for the West Virginia side of the river, but not as much for the Kentucky side and she generalized about the second using what she learned from the first. While the book was exceptionally well-researched, some information was overlooked or missed. Professor Waller unfortunately accepts the claim that the Tug Valley was a Confederate stronghold. However, only the West Virginia side of the river was strongly Confederate in its sympathies. The Kentucky side of the river contained a large number of Union veterans (possibly as many as a hundred or more men from this area joined the Federal army), and, in fact, in Pike County the area bordering the river was the most loyal in the entire county (post-war voting records reveal the largest percentages of Republican voters in the two precincts which were part of the Tug Valley). Waller's initial conclusions lead her to dismiss the Civil War connections of the feud. She was apparently unaware of the high degree of Unionism in the region and how it may have contributed to what could have been a continuation of the 1861-1865 warfare on the border, despite the alleged thirteen- and five-year respites. While it is well-known that Hatfield and his kin were Confederate veterans (though there is a justifiable dispute as to whether Devil Anse was actually a member of the Logan Wildcats), and it is also known that many of the McCoys had served in gray with the Hatfields, in the later phases of the feud (aptly identified by Dr. Waller) the participation of several former Union veterans or their sons in the fighting against the Hatfields indicates a significant Civil War connection. The evidence that the feuding was a carryover from the war is substantial and cannot be dismissed.

It has long been assumed that the famous feud between the Hatfields and McCoys in the 1880's was a family affair between two clans of primitive hillbillies. In Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860-1900, Altina Waller argues that this view is nothing less than folklore, and the historical reality of the feud has been all but lost. Her work successfully explodes the myths that have surrounded the feuding Hatfields and McCoys.

In her introduction, Professor Waller discusses the previous interpretations of the feud. The first states that, "the feud and the culture from which it emerged were anachronisms in modern society" and "they represented a primitive way of life which had somehow been preserved in much the same way that prehistoric fossils are preserved." The second school of thought suggests that the feud was a result of the transformation that was occurring in the region due to the "onslaught of industrialization." Waller rejects both of these interpretations because of three aspects of the feud that she has identified as violence, family, and timing. Waller has concluded after much research that "in the 1870s and 1880s, the Tug Valley may have been boisterous and rowdy, but it was far from dangerous" and that "something unusual was happening eithin this particular community which drove a few individuals and families to resort to extreme measures." And Waller discounts the family explanation because " supportersof the Hatfields and of the Mccoys consisted of numerous individuals unrelated to those families; in fact, more than half of each group were unrelated to the feud leaders. More puzzling, there were McCoys on the Hatfield side and Hatfields on the McCoy side." Waller rejects also that the feud was caused by the Civil War. She dates the feud from 1878-1900, and identifies two phases with a five year interim. Waller offers that the feud must be examined internally and also in the light of regional and national trends.

The Tug Valley in the years following the Civil War underwent profound changes. Due to rapid growth in population and the finite agricultural resources available in the Valley, a sort of greedy desperation began to emerge in the character of some inhabitants of the Tug Valley. Also at this time outside interest in the vast resources of the Appalachias was taking the form of big money men and local agents purchasing huge tracts of land in order to exploit the mountains for their coal and timber. Gradually the mountaineer was transformed from an inependent farmer to an impoverished wage laborer. attempting to buck this trend is none other than Devil Anse Hatfield. Through hard work and some crafty legal maneuvers, Anse becomes proprieter of a sizable timber busines. And in the process incurs the wrath of Old Ranel McCoy and Perry Cline. Old Ranel through his own foolishness has not prospered, and Anse has bested Cline in a court action and removed him from his lands, which are then awarded to Anse. This is what Professor Waller has discovered to be the crux of the feud--economic power and control and its resultant societal implications. Anse has climbed the ladder while others have watched, and they are jealous.

These truths were initially lost because of the sensational handling of the feud by the newspapers of the day. Altina Waller has been successful in separating the myths from the reality. She states in conclusion that, "the feudists were struggling with the same historical forces of transformation that had been changing Americal since before the American Revolution." This is the larger picture.

Waller has a done a spectacular job of recreating this now infamous event, seperating fact from myth and rebutting many of the stereotypes that were perpetrated about the feud by the Northern press that glamorized it. As a native of Pike County, Kentucky and a distant relative of many involved in this feud, I found the text most informative. It is also accesible to anyone who is not from Appalachia or who is not versed in its history.

Noah Adams follows the New River from its headwaters in North Carolina to its end in West Virginia. This is not a textbook of the river's history, geography or geological formation. Instead, it is a conversational documentary. The pace of the river seems to set the pace of the book. Some chapters sit still for a minute and gaze in detail at a plant or a fish. Some chapters offer glimpses of the residents and communities along the New River. Some chapters fly by with the the excitment and adrenalin rush of the whitewater rapids. Some chapters ponder the past, some ponder the future. It's a trip worth taking through Noah Adam's eyes, thoughts, and words.

I used to live near the New and Noah Adams describes it wonderfully. While on a quest to learn more about his family from the area, he also spends most of his Spring, Summer, and Fall in and around the New River. He bikes, hikes, canoes, and whitewater rafts in and around the New while telling about the history of all 350 miles of it. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific location on the river and he even gives the Latitude/ Longitude so you can visit the places he was. I highly reccomend this book!!

In traveling the New River from North Carolina to West Virginia, Noah Adams found a part of America that sometimes stands still in time, and other times seems to go backward. Part of his journey relates to an earlier epic of his own life spent in Appalachia. Whatever the reasons, he paints a picture of the river's path that is both nostalgic and distant.

Coal mining was a big industry in much of this section of the country, but much of it is gone now. Towns, mines, have almost completely disappeared, while others are ugly blots on the landscape. And still, the New River cuts its way through mountains, creating gorges, south to north, in the same way it has done for millennia. Bridges cross it. People live beside it. And a new industry -- whitewater rafting, kayaking, and other touristy pursuits -- has encroached on its waters.

As Adams traveled the river, he met professional guides, herbalists, and others who make their livings on the river. Many, perhaps most of them love the river. Each knows some of its history, and their stories often only whet our appetites.

Readers of travels in America would enjoy this book. However, someone who once lived in North Carolina, Virginia, or West Virginia, having some knowledge of both history and geography of those areas, will be reminded of their time there and stories they may have heard. It might even make some of those who moved away want to go back. Even if only for a vist.

Though the terrible war for Independence is over in the colonies, now the United States, the war in Nathanael "Fox" Carter's life is just beginning.

Just after the war, Fox and his mother, Awinita, get news that a family member was killed in the last battle of the war. Soon tragedy strikes and Fox inherits a plantation. But will greed overcome his uncle Naaman who's furious because Fox inherited the plantation. Fox and his mother fear for their lives so they escape over the Misty Mountains.

Hannah Spencer soon befriends Fox. Fox gets to explore his Indian side of his ancestry. He meets the Indians Akando and Adahy and they teach him the ways of the Indian. Little does he know his mother and Akando have a past together. Sequatchie also becomes a big part of Fox's life.

Fox soon becomes unsure of his feelings for Hannah and not knowingly is really in competition for her with another man. All the while Fox struggles with his faith and heritage. Little does Fox know that both sides of his heritage have plans for him and they may not bed good.

Will Watauga ever become a state? Will Fox choose the right path for himself?

This is a wonderful edition to the Spirit of Appalachia series. Fox was a wonderful character to bring into the series. Fox made the plot twist and turn with the people he brought into the plot with him. Well the plot was wonderful and I strongly suggest the book

One of the things that I love best about Gilbert Morris are his historical settings. I love American History and enjoy the fictional stories that revolve around fact. This book was not as satisfying as his other books in the series, but it was still very good and enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the next one.

These books are of the typical Gilbert Morris genre. Admit it, we all pretty much know what will happen in the end. Don't get me wrong though, it's a fun read. I love U.S. history. Somehow though when I'm reading out of the history book, only faint dusty pictures come to mind. Not with this series! Famous historical figures like Daniel Boone and the Little Carpenter take on a life and a magic of their own. Gilbert Morris manages to give these people a good dusting! Makes me kind of lonely though. I seriously doubt that there is my own Hawk, Jacob, Andrew, or Seth out there. Guess I'll have to wait and see...I recommend you read this series. It puts new light on age old things!

This is an excellent book for young and old readers alike. I enjoyed it because it showed what people lived like in this century, but left out any inappropriate material. It read like a fiction book, but in reality was a non-fiction written about the authors experiences while living in this remote area. It includes a gun fight, general hardships endured, and facts about everyday life.

This book is a good example of how people really lived in this century. I enjoyed this book because it doesn't contain anything offensive to young readers but does include the excitement of a gun battle, true hardships these people endured, and information on their everyday life. It is told as a non- fiction work, but does carry you along like a fiction book. Excellent for anyone interested in pioneer life or as a compasison to how our life could be. ***I read the original book published in the 1940's not this updated one.

While this book is uplifting, it tends to glorify and whitewash history. I certainly wish life were so gentle and beautiful, like carefully-chosen memories. But life is not. I wish Mr. Venable would have been more realistic, is what I am trying to say. Life WAS hard back then, and backbreaking, and depressing at times, just like life is now. Not everyone dealt with the stressors as well as others. Good times and bad times blended and merged. I enjoyed the read, don't get me wrong. I just prefer more realism and grit, to the misty fogs and dreamy landscapes he projects.

Sam Venable may not be a familliar name to some readers. To those of us who own and treasure his books, he is a trusted guide into the backwoods and hollers of Southern Appalachia. Most of his literature concentrates on his ability to tell a tale, and in this medium he is a modern master in a league with Patrick McMannus or Garison Keelor. However, this book is a departure from some of his other books. In "Mountain Hands", Sam Venable and Paul Efird have produced a labor of love that depicts the hard life, and gentle times of the craftsmen of southern Appalachia. It is an unvarnished and genuine glimpse into the homes and hearts of forty people who keep the embers of mountain craftsmanship glowing. The photographs (Ultra High Quality Black and White), enrich the text with a warmth and charm born of a love of the craft. The subjects are as varied as Doll making, Fly Tying, Grave Digging and Fiddle and Mandolin making. One theme runs true in each and every story, a respectfull and honest glimpse into the craftsman as well as the craft. This is an excellent that can be read chapter by chapter over a period of weeks, or devoured in one sitting as I did.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, this is one book worth purchasing in hard cover so your children and grandchildren can treasure it as much as I am sure you will.

Can I just tell you, I was tickled pink by Troy's voyeuristic adventure into the lives of those wild and crazy Appalachian folk. Despite having read this book eons ago, I was again reminded of its universal theme while watching "Space Truckers" last night. First and foremost: never agree to take a shipload of square pigs on an intergalaxtic adventure without getting a down payment. And only less importantly, realize your limitations when trying to impose your ideas (especially those of religious origins) on those who don't fully appreciate the fact that Donna finally gave it up to boost viewer ratings.

Into the hills and hollows of Appalachia this book travels to examine the faith of the hill-folk. Written primarily by academics, the contributors are familiar with mountain people and their Christian beliefs. The plurality of the region's faith is emphasized with some contributors searching for a common "mountain religion". From serpent-handlers to double predestinationists, Appalachia is a patchwork quilt, inwhich low church traditions predominate. The low church traditions differ perhaps from other regions of America in that here these traditions are divided up into schisms and sub-schisms. Mainline denominations are included but their relative lack of success with the hill-folk makes their story less interesting. For myself, I found the mountain Baptist and Pentecostal churches by far the most intriquing. In particular the chapters on the Old Time Baptists by Howard Dorgan, Serpent-Handlers by Mary Lee Daughtery, and the Profile of the Church of God by Donald N. Bowdle are worth the price of the book. Some of the other contributors are a bit dry, getting bogged down in denominational minutia and programs rather than describing the people and their faith. In that respect, the book is somewhat like gold mining: a lot of ore, but the nuggets are so worth all the work. As a farmer, I enjoyed the chapter on the "tobacco churches" by Poage. If you love the Southern Appalachians as I do, and are intrigued by its people, you will enjoy this book. The mountain people who are sometimes condescendingly seen as simple, are here portrayed as genuine, sincere zealous seekers of God. With the homogenization of America through mass media(yes, there are satellite dishes in Appalachia), one wonders how much longer the "mountain religion" will remain relatively unchanged. As Samuel S. Hill states in the last chapter, these people are not "frozen in time". But, on an optimistic note, perhaps the mountain people with no quest to be "up to date"(like, for example those in Mainline Protestantism), will continue to remain relatively unchanged, and ironically these premoderns will have something relevant to teach us in the postmodern world.