It's the Mountain Way

Book excerpt: It's the Mountain Way is a coming-of-age story filled with suspense and memories of first love. Savannah Benjamin, born and raised in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, knew the ways of the mountain. She had only experienced the outside world from the books she read. But books couldn't teach her how first love felt, or explain why some people who seemed good were not always trustworthy. They didn't tell her that teenagers could be mean or unfriendly. These lessons she had to learn for herself. Set in 1983, marrying young was not unusual in the isolated hollows and villages of the mountains. At fourteen, Savannah was no longer a child, but not yet an adult. Her mother had married at fifteen, she wanted more for her daughter. Horace Jenks, the local moonshiner, had other plans for Savannah.