Regret The Dark Hour

When Nole Darlen kills his father—the man who has built the largest house anyone in these East Tennessee hills has ever seen—the single resounding gunshot sets up a dark patchwork of memory and expectation that gathers-up townspeople, hill-folks, lovers and outlaws. Here is a tangled tale involving the dead man’s wife, neighbor Burlton Hobbes, desperado Jem Craishot, and a grizzled muskrat-trapper named Hogeye. Central to the story is a pistol that Nole Darlen has taken from a card game the night before the murder. The pistol becomes a totem to Nole, an embodiment of the frustrations and failures that have dogged his life. He envies and fears the outlaw, Jem Craishot, wishing he, too, could be “fearsome,” but descends, instead, into cowardice and betrayal. Eventually, the gun becomes a central element of the novel’s twisted story, a talisman of murder, and a key to the book’s shocking ending. Richard Hood brings to bear his deep roots in rural East Tennessee. The plots and subplots of Regret the Dark Hour are based on true stories. The house still exists, the patricide really happened, the outlaw—Jem Craishot—is based upon the legendary Kinny Wagner, whose exploits derive from this time and region. The novel’s social and cultural backgrounds are accurate, and call-up the rich heritage of East Tennessee. The novel has been called “Southern Gothic Noir,” and Hood describes it as an “anti-mystery.” There is never any doubt about who killed Carl Darlen, but the story turns and weaves through the day of the murder and ends with a startling, dark, surprise. Here is a story of family violence—its simmering causes and smoldering consequences—set against the clashing tensions of old-and-new, fiddle-tunes and factories, among the hills and coves of prohibition-era East Tennessee. Praise for REGRET THE DARK HOUR: “Richard Hood’s Regret the Dark Hour is a search for Regional Truth and the ways memory, representation, and history intertwine to produce stories, interpretation, and character. This novel is a triumph—giving us the sound and flavor of prohibition-era East Tennessee, in a mix of voice, perception, and blindness embedded within the darkly tangled story of a family murder.” —Shelby Stephenson, Poet Laureate of North Carolina and author of Paul’s Hill: Homage to Whitman; Our World and Nin’s Poem “Regret the Dark Hour calls up a story of betrayal, forbidden love, and familial violence in prohibition-era Appalachia. Hood’s stunning and lyrical writing vividly captures the world of this forgotten time period. A beautiful debut and wonderful addition to southern noir.” —Jen Conley, author of Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry

The first major biography of the Carter family, musical pioneers who almost singlehandedly established the sounds and traditions that grew into folk, country, and bluegrass music.

For the first time in print two novellas in the pulp paperback tradition of fast and no-punches-pulled noir. In White Hot Pistol Jacy needs to get out of town and away from her stepfather, Brian. The only one she can turn to is her estranged brother, Nash. But getting away won’t be easy. Throw in a bag of cash, dark family secrets and a town cop who doesn’t want them to leave—who also happens to be the very man they’re trying to escape—and you’ve got a pulpy ride down the dark alleys of Noir. First time in paperback. In Blood on Their Hands Garret and his friends get more than they bargained for with a teenage prank gone wrong. Now killers are after them and the one man who could help them can never know. Friendships will be tested and these young men will see what they’re really made of and if they’ll even make it out of their teen years alive. It’s a violent coming-of-age story and pulp fiction at its action-packed best. Never before published. Praise for Eric Beetner: “If Beetner had been around in the 1950s, he could’ve had a nice career writing for Gold Medal or Dell First Editions, and that’s a high compliment from me.” —Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series “Eric Beetner is the standard by which all current hardboiled and noir writers should be judged.” —Paul Bishop, author of Lie Catchers “Beetner is an old school talent, a crime writer’s crime writer like Gil Brewer (although, in my humble opinion, he’s better than Brewer), who writes stuff that is fast and funny and dark all at once.” —Jake Hinkson, author of Hell on Church St. and No Tomorrow “Few contemporary writers do justice to the noir tradition the way Eric Beetner does. Others try to emulate and mimic; Beetner just takes the form and cuts his own jagged, raw and utterly readable path.” —Gar Anthony Haywood, author of Assume Nothing, Cemetery Road and the Aaron Gunner series

Poetry, story and prayers help us reflect on what practicing peace means in every moment of our daily lives. This book offers insights throughout the course of the day, from “waking” to “resting” and concludes each section with a blessing.

The bruises in the poems by L. Ward Abel are those left on the American landscape and history, especially the rural settings populated by men like Lincoln and Whitman. His poetry explores the back roads and rivers of the nation and what has been left there to decay: “...no ceiling to shield the rain from reaching / what used to be the floor. I think those places are / more holy now / with a view straight up / and into heaven.” L. Ward Abel was born in 1959 in Atlanta. He is a poet, composer, and performer of music with Abel, Rawls & Hayes, teacher, and retired lawyer. He lives in rural Georgia. Mr. Abel’s work appears in many online and print publications. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003); Jonesing for Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006); The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008); Torn Sky Bleeding Blue (erbacce-Press, 2010); and the forthcoming Cousins Over Colder Fields (Finishing Line Press, 2013).

Matricide. Patricide. Infanticide. Athaliah would do anything to take the throne, just as Jehoshebeth would do anything to protect it.

From the internationally bestselling author of Moondust Lake comes an emotional and enriching novel of family, forgiveness, self-acceptance, and self-discovery . . . When the darkness seems too hard to bear, there’s only one thing left to do. Six years ago, Daniel was a Los Angeles financial analyst who was too handsome for his own good. Too smart for his anchor job on the nightly news. And too enamored with the heady addictions of the high life. That man died in a tragic accident with his fiancée. With grief and guilt battling for control, Daniel moved to the quiet California seaside town of Miramar Bay with his best friend—a rescue Labradoodle who still sees him through rough times. Daniel’s a different man now. Clean, sober, and taking things one day at a time with no commitments to anyone except himself. And just as his solitude begins to chafe, two souls in need of fresh starts unexpectedly enter Daniel’s life . . . Realize that it’s time to wake up. Daniel’s self-centered sister has dissolved several longtime relationships. Theirs included. The latest? Her restless teenage daughter, Nicole, whom she’s dropped off in Miramar Bay without a backward glance. For Nicole, who’s never felt at home in the world, it only confirms the disconnect she’s always had with her mother. Now, left with an uncle she barely knows, Nicole is more adrift than ever. Yet to Daniel’s surprise, playing surrogate father is forging a bond that he needs, too. More difficult for Daniel is the possibility of romance with lovely and fragile Stella Dalley. Struggling with a trauma of her own, the single mother is as cautious about love as Daniel is—no matter how healing it could be. But for Daniel, Stella, and Nicole there’s still hope for a tomorrow they can call their own. All they have do is to learn to trust in each other, and in themselves. A powerful novel of new beginnings, chances taken, and hearts lost and found, Tranquility Falls is a timeless love story to treasure.