Many of the highlanders in Virginias western mountains live in small communities with names such as Stonebruise, Novelty, and Wangle Junction, and here their stories are chronicled by one of their own, Floyd County native and Pulitzer-nominated journalist Rex Bowman, roving reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Colorful characters abound, from folks in Independence who have a decades-old tradition of racing outhouses, to the brawlers in St. Paul who once gave the town a reputation for world-class wickedness, to the purveyors of Roanokes Texas Tavern who have never in seventy years put ketchup on their hamburgers. Blue Ridge Chronicles is a delightful look at how the lively have lived in Southwest Virginias backcountry.

Many of the highlanders in Virginia's western mountains live in small communities with names such as Stonebruise, Novelty, and Wangle Junction, and here their stories are chronicled by one of their own, Floyd County native and Pulitzer-nominated journalist Rex Bowman, roving reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Colorful characters abound, from folks in Independence who have a decades-old tradition of racing outhouses, to the brawlers in St. Paul who once gave the town a reputation for world-class wickedness, to the purveyors of Roanoke's Texas Tavern who have never in seventy years put ketchup on their hamburgers. Blue Ridge Chronicles is a delightful look at how the lively have lived in Southwest Virginia's backcountry.

Karen Godwell isn't as much ashamed of her mountain heritage as of what she had to do to preserve it. She reinvents herself at college and doesn't look back till her clan's historic farm is threatened. The gutsy New York Metropolitan Museum curator returns to the mountains only to come face to face with who she was and what she did.Descendants of the early settlers still have a grip on the farmlands deep in the folds of the southern Blue Ridge Mountains, but the ground is shifting beneath their feet. Cousin Bruce, the town historian, sees life through the family's colorful two-hundred-year past; Tom Gibbons, a local conservationist, keeps one eye on the mountains and the other on Karen; Karen's nine-year-old daughter, Hali, is in the throes of the mission her father sent her on before he died; and Karen is hiding the ugly secret that drove her away.As she wrestles her dangerously cunning brother for the farm, Karen straddles the divide between the staunchly independent mountain culture she comes from and the sophisticated world she has become part of.

The true story of the construction of the historic Crozet railroad tunnel—as seen through the eyes of three Irish immigrant families who helped build it. In one of the greatest engineering feats of the time, Claudius Crozet led the completion of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Tunnel in 1858. More than a century and a half later, the tunnel stands as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, but the stories and lives of those who built it are the true lasting triumph. Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Hunger poured into America resolved to find something to call their own. They would persevere through life in overcrowded shanties and years of blasting through rock to see the tunnel to completion. In this intriguing history, Mary E. Lyons follows three Irish families in their struggle to build Crozet’s famed tunnel—and their American dream. Includes photos and illustrations

THE WIND IN THE WOODS is a Romantic Thriller that will take you into Tiger Morrison's world of inspiring young minds with the wonders of nature; his daughter's commitment to hike the Blue Ridge, never suspecting that a serial killer is stalking her; and the overly protected nine-year-old, Alvin Magee's, heart-warming discovery of freedom and responsibility in a place apart from his adult world. Charismatic widower, Tiger Morrison, spent a lifetime saving children from nature-deficit disorder, only to find himself in the fight of his life to protect his undisturbed world from the land grab waging in the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains. He's fighting to win Katie Warlick too, but she can't forgive him for not wanting her the way she wanted him twenty years ago.

Motorcyclists who think they have the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia all figured out have another thing coming. In his third guide, Hawk Hagebak takes riders from bustling Market Square in downtown Roanoke, VA to the giant ridgetop windmills outside rural Davis, WV, and from the scenic wonder of the Natural Bridge to the engineering wonder of the New River Bridge. Outlining 25 routes, Hagebak chronicles a classic feud over a county seat, how French engineers came to build a road across Virginia, and the way coal mining changed the face of West Virginia for better and for worse. In between the tight turns, sweeping curves, covered bridges, tiny towns, and mountain passes of the Central Appalachians, he imparts tips on where to eat, stay, play, and relax.