Sugar Fork

Title: SUGAR FORK

Author: Walt Larimore

Publisher: Howard Books

October 2012

ISBN:  978-1439141908

Genre: historical

Sixteen year old  Abbie Randolph and her family struggle to survive in the Great Smoky Mountain wilders during 1925-1926. Her mother has just died in childbirth, and her father is struggling to maintain a living, working in a mine and hunting for food, while trying to protect the family timber land from and evil lumber company manager.

Abbie falls in love for the first time, helps to run the farm, and then battles to preserve her faith when senseless murders threaten to destroy her family and way of life.

Will the Randolph family survive intact? Will the farm be saved? Only a miracle could make it happen.

SUGAR FORK is the first book I’ve read by Dr. Larimore. It started out with the prologue in first person (written by a doctor’s point of view) and then went to the historical part of the story.

Dr. Larimore writes in a style rich with description. It slows the story down, but I could see the mountain timberland during the harsh barrenness of winter and feel the cold wind coming over the ‘hills’.

Readers will grow to care for Abbie, mourn with her during the senseless murders, and applaud this teenage girl’s strength. If you like historical fiction, you won’t want to miss this one set in the Great Smoky Mountains, around the same time frame as Christy. $14.99. 386 pages.