Finalist for the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award“When I’m dead and buried . . . you get the hell out of here . . . Make a life somewhere else . . . a life that I can’t even imagine.”Jo has a gift. She is a mathematical prodigy—a woman who sees and thinks in numbers. She secures a job as a teller at Central Bank & Trust, where she recreates herself as a modern woman and rises through the professional ranks. While working a...

With his customary verve and insight, Terry Roberts's latest novel is an evocative portrait of humankind's capacity for courage, love, and hope as well as folly, and another love ballad to his region of North Carolina.Clinton Salter is the sheriff who never wanted to be sheriff. A World War II veteran and widower, he is elected due to the political machinations of his brother. His new territory is the fabled Madison County, North Carolina—a place of the steepest mo...

Short-listed for Southern Literary Review's Books of the Year 2025With his customary verve and insight, Terry Roberts' latest novel is an evocative portrait of humankind's capacity for courage, love, and hope as well as folly, and another love ballad to his region of North Carolina.Clinton Salter is the sheriff who never wanted to be sheriff. A World War II veteran and widower, he is elected due to the political machinations of his...

- Award-winning author: Author Terry Roberts has won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, Sir Walter Raleigh Award, Clark Cox Award for Fiction, and was a James Still Award Finalist. - Regional Expert: Terry Roberts has extensive knowledge of the region he writes, and has strong family ties within the North Carolina Appalachia area. - Veterans Connection: Veterans have connected to this title, especially the subject of PTSD being dealt in a narrative and relatable way.

2025 Sir Walter Raleigh Fiction Award nominee for the North Carolina Book AwardsWalk the dark halls and threatening streets of 1920s Asheville in this thrilling third installment of The Stephen Robbins Chronicles, as fan-favorite Robbins confronts the dangerous contrast between appearance and reality at the exclusive Grove Park Inn.It’s the autumn of 1924, and Benjamin Loftis has a problem. A college girl is discovered—naked and dead—in one...

Southern Fiction: Terry Robert’s debut novel with the same main character, A Short Time to Stay Here, won the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction and received endorsements from critically-acclaimed authors including Lee Smith, Elizabeth Spencer, Robert Morgan, and othersAn Immigrant's Tale: This immensely topical story will appeal widely to those interested in the history of Ellis island and current socio-political issues concerning immigratio...

That Bright Land is a new Southern gothic thriller from Terry Roberts, winner of the 2012 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction.In the summer of 1866, Jacob Ballard, a former Union soldier and spy, is dispatched by the War Department in Washington City to infiltrate the isolated North Carolina mountain community where he was born and find a serial killer responsible for the deaths of Union veterans. Based on true events, That Bright Land is the story of a viole...

1866: One year after the surrender of the Confederate army in Appomattox signaled the end of the Civil War, a veteran Union soldier will try to track down a killer who is waging his own war against the members of an isolated community in the North Carolina mountains.

Jedidiah Robbins is a man on a crusade. From town to town, his Gospel train rides the rails of 1920s Appalachia, spreading the Good News with his daughter and a loyal group of roustabouts in tow. But Jedidiah’s traveling revival company has a secret: in addition to offering the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it also delivers spirits of another kind. Prohibition is in full swing, but The Sword of the Lord train keeps the speakeasies in the towns it visits in business by providing the be...

The summer of 1917 should have been a summer like any other. Stephen Robbins should have been doing the same thing he’d been doing for years past. As a young boy he’d fled his life in a secluded mountain cove and risen through the ranks to become the manager of the South’s finest resort, the elegant Mountain Park Hotel. By all rights, he should have spent this summer as host to some of the wealthiest gentry on the East Coast. Hans Ruser, German commodore of the world’s largest and most lux...

"When I'm dead and buried . . . you get the hell out of here . . . Make a life somewhere else . . . a life that I can't even imagine."Jo has a gift. She is a mathematical prodigy—a woman who sees and thinks in numbers. She secures a job as a teller at Central Bank & Trust, where she recreates herself as a modern woman and rises through the professional ranks. While working at the bank, Jo becomes fascinated by Levi Arrowood, the dark and mysterious manager...

Jedidiah Robbins is a man on a crusade. From town to town, his Gospel train rides the rails of 1920s Appalachia, spreading the Good News with his daughter and a loyal group of roustabouts in tow. But Jedidiah's traveling revival company has a secret: in addition to offering the gifts of the Holy Spirit, it also delivers spirits of another kind. Prohibition is in full swing, but The Sword of the Lord train keeps the speakeasies in the towns it visits in business by providing the best that m...