ONCE A PERSON LEAVES THE MOUNTAIN, THEY NEVER COME BACK, NOT REALLY. THEY’RE LOST FOREVER. Nellie Clay married Hobbs Pritchard without even noticing he was a spell conjured into a man, a walking, talking ghost story. But her mama knew. She saw it in her tea leaves: death. Folks told Nellie to get off the mountain while she could, to go back home before it was too late. Hobbs wasn’t nothing but trouble. He’d even killed a man. No telling what else. That mountain was haunted, and soon enough, Nellie would feel it too. One way or another, Hobbs would get what was coming to him. The ghosts would see to that. . . . Told in the stunning voices of five women whose lives are inextricably bound when a murder takes place in rural Depression-era North Carolina, Ann Hite’s unforgettable debut spans generations and conjures the best of Southern folk-lore—mystery, spirits, hoodoo, and the incomparable beauty of the Appalachian landscape.

"Featuring a Gallery readers group guide"--P. [4] of cover.

Ann Hite takes her readers back to Black Mountain with this haunted short story collection. An array of new characters on the mountain experience ghostly encounters. The collection took inspiration from her beloved readers, who provided writing prompts. Wrinkle in the Air features Black Mountain's Polly Murphy, a young Cherokee woman, who sees her future in the well's water. Readers encounter relatives of Polly Murphy as the stories move through time. The Root Cellar introduces Polly's great grandson, who tends to be a little too frugal with his money until a tornado and Polly's spirit pays the mountain a visit. In The Beginning, the Middle, and the End, readers meet Gifted Lark on an excessively frigid January day. This story moves back and forth between 1942 and 1986 telling Gifted and her grandmother Anna's story. This telling introduces spirits that intervene in the spookiest of ways.

Ann Hite's third novel set in Black Mountain, North Carolina. At the age of ten, Annie Todd finds not only is her mother quite mad but that Annie has inherited an unusual legacy. The ghost of a young girl visits Annie in her new home deep in the mountains of Western North Carolina, where Annie's mother, Grace Jean, has hidden them away from the life they used to know.

Moving is stressful enough, but when Cerri Baker moves with her family to the Black Hills of South Dakota, she begins seeing things-things like murder. Named after a pre-Christian Celtic Goddess, Cerri has spent her life trying to avoid the spirituality and "hocus-pocus" her mother embraces. Once in the Black Hills, Cerri doesn't seem to have much choice as her spirit guide insists she find justice for a murdered man. As she struggles with her own destiny, Cerri must also convince the FBI that she is getting her information from another realm and not from first-hand knowledge of the murder

Thrilling stories of supernatural occurences in West Virginia, including the restless spirits of Harpers Ferry, the legendary Mothman of Point Pleasant, the ghosts of Twistabout Ridge, the phantom hitchhikers on the West Virginia Turnpike, and many more.

Ex-Mob enforcer Isaiah Coledrige has hung out a shingle as a private eye in New York's Hudson Valley, and in his newest case, a seemingly simple murder investigation leads him to the most terrifying enemy he has ever faced. When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir--sans a heartbeat, head, or hands--the local Mafia capo hires Isaiah Coleridge to look into the matter. The Mob likes crime, but only the crime it controls...and as it turns out, Lee is the second independent contractor to meet a bad end on the business side of a serrated knife. One such death can be overlooked. Two makes a man wonder. A guy in Harold Lee's business would make his fair share of enemies, and it seems a likely case of pure revenge. But as Coledrige turns over more stones, he finds himself dragged into something deeper and more insidious than he could have imagined, in a labyrinthine case spanning decades. At the center are an heiress moonlighting as a cabaret dancer, a powerful corporation with high-placed connections, and a serial killer who may have been honing his skills since the Vietnam War...