Strange folk A novel

Opaline "Lee" Ford swore she'd never return to Craw Valley after she left for college. She got married and had two kids, Meredith and Cliff, but when her marriage ended, she had nowhere else to go. Still estranged from her mother, Redbud, Lee and the kids stay with her grandmother, Belva Buck, who sells folk remedies and performs magic rituals based on her connection to the land. Fifteen-year-old Meredith, especially, is annoyed that her mother kept secret this part of her past; she wants to see if some of Belva's magic was passed down to her. It has--all the Buck women have it, and there's a little bit in Cliff, as well. When bad men in the community start ending up dead, folks in town think Belva or Lee (or both) are responsible, and Meredith turns to Redbud, who is trying to stay clean, for lessons in harnessing her power. Dyer's debut is a tale of Appalachian folk magic, addiction, and shadows, both figurative and literal, with a moving multigenerational mother-daughter story at its heart.

In Dyer's rich debut, a woman reckons with her family's legacy of Appalachian mountain magic. After Lee Carnell splits from her husband, Cooper, she and her adolescent children, Meredith and Cliff, return from California to Craw Valley, the homestead she left 20 years earlier. Under the guidance of her grandmother Belva, who is respected by many of the locals as a witch woman, Lee reacquaints herself with "the power of the land," which her family and others have channeled for healing purposes. The magic has a vengeful side, too, as Lee learns after Belva casts a spell meant to thwart the lust of a man named Joseph Hall who was caught ogling Meredith's friend. After Joseph is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Lee confronts her estranged mother Redbud for answers about the scope of the magic's power. Dyer raises the stakes further when Cooper shows up to try to lure the kids away and Lee rekindles a high school romance. The ease with which Lee and others master the magic feels contrived, but Dyer fortifies the tale with a well-timed surprise and gratifying reconciliations between her characters. It's catnip for fans of homespun tales of rural America. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, CAA. (Aug.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated that the story takes place in the Ozark mountains.