WINTER'S RECKONING

In this debut historical novel, set in 1917, a healer and herbalist must set aside her personal demons to save her town from a corrupt pastor.

In Jamesville, a tiny Southern Appalachian town, widow Maddie Fairbanks, who’s White, tends her farm and heals the sick with the help of her apprentice, Renetta Morgan, who’s Black. The two have a close friendship that angers local segregationists. After Carl Howard, the new pastor, arrives, he preaches that a woman’s place is in the home, and that Black and White people should be separated. Local members of the Ku Klux Klan burn crosses and hang nooses in people’s front yards, and locals associate Maddie’s herbalism and midwifery with witchcraft. Meanwhile, Carl flirts with Maddie’s married daughter, Jane, and seduces Ren into a sexual relationship. Maddie, her granddaughter Hannah, and newspaper reporter Randall Evans are all deeply troubled by Carl’s machinations, but most other townspeople follow his disturbing lead. Not long after a blizzard rattles the entire town (“The biggest snowdrifts were higher than a person’s head, and even the shallow spots were too deep to spot hare”), even Ren turns against Maddie for a short time. Meanwhile, Maddie is strongly affected by a tragic event and finds it hard to regain her strength and stand up to Carl, who’s determined to force her out of town. Holmes’ satisfying conclusion offers a twist to the tale, and she does not shy away from the dark side of human nature and the brutality of those who profane religion for their own ends. In addition, the novel’s explorations of the horrors of misogyny and racism have powerful contemporary resonance. Along the way, Holmes constructs a vivid and believable historical setting and populates her novel with well-developed characters who are flawed and relatable as they seek to triumph over evil.

A notable tale that offers the hope that even small actions can lead toward greater good.