The Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries Series

In this haunting tale from the heart of Appalachia, Vicki Lane draws together past and present, good and evil, folklore and secrets, mesmerizing readers with the mysterious bond of true sisterhood—richer than blood, stronger than the passage of time.
 
Elizabeth Goodweather and her city-girl sister, Gloria, couldn’t be more different. Elizabeth lives on a farm in the Great Smoky Mountains. Gloria lives in Florida off an ex-husband’s fortune. Gloria is a beauty; Elizabeth isn’t. Now, to Elizabeth’s intense displeasure, Gloria parks herself at Full Circle Farm, on the run from her latest man, who, she insists, is trying to kill her. Elizabeth thinks this is just another of her sister’s fantasies. Besides, Elizabeth has her wedding to plan—if only she can overcome her fear that the man who already shares her life may not be what he appears to be. At this precarious crossroads, the sisters must turn to each other—or face a lifetime of consequences.

 
A night of reckoning . . .
A dawn of danger . . .

In the misty folds of Appalachia, the girl they call Least grows up cursed by her mother’s cruelty and blessed by her neglect. Deemed unfit to join the outside world, Least turns to the wisdom of the land, to voices she alone can hear, to legends left by native Indians, and to the arts of divination and healing. But the time comes when Least has to choose between a doting suitor and her childhood magic, between his church and her spirits. Now, as her life enters its final chapter, her world has been invaded by a violent criminal with a chilling plan. To stop him from committing an unspeakable crime—and to free an innocent child—the woman who was once Least must break long-held promises, draw on long-buried powers, and face a darkness no one else can even see.

In a North Carolina winter, new vistas appear through the bare trees. For Elizabeth Goodweather of Full Circle Farm, still a newcomer after more than twenty years, one terrible glimpse ignites a mystery that reaches back years into these hills, drawing together dozens of seemingly unconnected lives. Elizabeth sees a frail old woman on a high porch where dolls hang by twine. When the woman jumps, and Elizabeth reacts, there is no turning back.

Nola Barrett’s ancient, sprawling house is spewing a dark past: of depravity, scandal and murder. Her land is at the center of multiple mysteries, ranging from a suspicious death to the brutal rape of a young woman to the legend of a handsome youth hanged for murder. But with Nola recovering from her self-inflicted wounds, Elizabeth has inherited her mad, violent drama—while a killer has a perfect view of it all.…

Elizabeth Goodweather knows what it’s like to be an outsider, to keep secrets and nurse wounds. But Elizabeth raised a family in these mist-shrouded North Carolina hills and is deeply settled on her small farm—even finding the space to let a new man into her life. Everything changes when her daughter Rosemary returns home, determined to solve a nineteen-year-old riddle: the mysterious disappearance of her best friend, Maythorn Mullins, when the girls were just ten.

Soon Elizabeth and her daughter are prying into the strange history of the Mullins family, confronting a complex thicket of relationships and exploring a realm of magic and Cherokee legend that Maythorn shared secretly with Rosemary.

But most of all, they will discover that behind a child’s disappearance was something more evil and far closer than they ever imagined….

North Carolina’s hills are a crazy quilt of old farmsteads and new beginnings, of locals, strangers, artists, and new age wanderers….Here Elizabeth Goodweather has made her life, a still-young widow who moves easily between the gentrified world of Asheville and old-timers in their hollows. But when a flamboyant performance artist is murdered, and Elizabeth learns the amazing history of a magnificent piece of folk art, she gets caught between her two worlds–and in the middle of an agonizing mystery.

A young woman, taking her artwork to the breaking point, has brought a history of unexplained deaths and dangerous liaisons into Elizabeth’s life. Courted by an ex-cop, trying to protect her love-struck nephew, Elizabeth knows that danger has entered her peaceful world. But she can’t guess how deadly the threat is–nor how masterfully a killer can hide….

Elizabeth Goodweather and her husband built a rewarding life in the hills and hollows of their adopted Appalachian home. But now Elizabeth is alone, her husband tragically killed, her children grown, the land around her filled with customs and beliefs she cannot share. It’s still a good life–tending the small herb and flower business–but Elizabeth’s fragile peace is about to be shattered.

Cletus Gentry vanished while hunting ginseng in the hills–and his mother is sure the childlike man was murdered. As Elizabeth retraces Cletus’s last wanderings, she will discover that a killer has been waiting all the while in the coves and hollows near her farm for her to see the light…and then come willingly to her own death.