Donna Everhart The Saints of Swallow Hill

Annotation

In the dense pine forests of North Carolina turpentiners hack into tree trunks to draw out the sticky sap that gives the Tar Heel State its nickname. Rae Lynn Cobb and her husband, Warren, run a small turpentine farm together. When Warren falls victim to his own negligence, Rae Lynn is blamed. She disguises herself as a man named "Ray" and heads to a turpentine camp in Georgia named Swallow Hill. In the isolated camp, commissary owner Otis Riddle takes out his frustrations on his browbeaten wife, Cornelia. Rae Lynn becomes a target for Crow, the woods rider who checks each laborer's tally. Delwood Reese offers Ray a small measure of protection, and is determined to improve their conditions. Rae Lynn will have to come to terms with her past before she can open herself to a new life and seize the chance to begin again.