Hazel Creek

By: Walt Larimore M.D.

Narrated by: Joey Collins, Stina Nielsen

Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the Hazel Creek Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains, Nathan and Callie Randolph, with their five unique daughters, wrestle to maintain their farm, forests, family, and faith against an unforgiving wilderness. An evil lumber company manager is seeking by every means possible to pilfer their land and clear-cut their virgin forest.

A cast of colorful characters, including a menacing stranger, gypsy siblings, a granny midwife, and a world-famous writer - even a flesh-and-blood Haint - collide in a gripping struggle of good and evil amid eruptions of violence and tragedy. Our heroine, fifteen-year-old Abbie Randolph, has to help save her family's farm and raise her sisters while preserving her faith.

This important story, based on almost ten years of research and four years of living in the area, captures the speech, ways, and beliefs of these unique pioneers at a crucial and irreversible turning point in this Smoky Mountains community of the Southern Appalachians. With the march of the industrial age, especially commercial lumbering, the traditional life and ways of our southern highlanders in general, and the Randolphs in particular, were about to change forever.

©2012 Walt Larimore (P)2014 Recorded Books

Good and Evil in the Smoky Mountains

What could make me love you less? Nothin' What could make me love you more? Nothin' These words from Nathan Randolph to his daughter, Abbie, when she disappointed him will stick with me a long time . . . and it no doubt, stuck with her . . . The Smoky Mountains and Hazel Creek were a rough and wild place with not only the natural dangers of black bear and frigid weather, and the hard life of farmers, but also the evil men out to take their land, by hook or crook . . . the mountain lore is fascinating, the healing herbs, the midwife who came to deliver the Randolph's babies, and the gypsy brother and sister who stayed behind after the traveling fair left town, all make for a wonderful tale . . . the old Haint, living in the woods, whom few had ever seen and some thought was just a folk tale, was a great addition . . . full of struggles and real life decisions, so different than the kind which we face today, this book is an excellent listen and example of life in Appalachia before the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountain Park . . .

Wonderful story, Awesome narration and story

Everything in one book. a real tear jerker. Just Awesome. Enjoyed listening to a beautiful voice.