Synopses & Reviews
Growing up in Virginia's Allegheny Mountains, eleven-year-old Charlie York lives at the foot of an endless peak called Angel's Rest, a place his momma told him angels rested before coming down to help folks. In 1967 his town was a poor boy's paradise...until a shotgun blast killed Charlie's father and put his mother on trial for murder.
For mysterious reasons, his mother entrusts his care to an old black man named Lacy Albert Coe. Lacy tells simple stories about the good and the bad that compose life's sweetest music. But when Hollis Thrasher, a reclusive Korean War veteran, is linked to his father's death and Lacy is victimized by hate crimes, Charlie hears only silence. It's not until Charlie embarks on a dangerous midnight journey pitting him against his darkest fears that he finally hears his own song playing out.
In this remarkable debut, Charles Davis weaves together an unforgettable melody of a mother's love, a hero's return to the living, and a boy who discovers angels do exist.
Charles Davis is a former federal law enforcement officer and U.S. Army soldier. In 1999 he moved from the coast of Maine to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, rented a beach house, got a part-time job as a construction worker, and began writing his first novel. The author currently lives in New Hampshire with his wife, son, and dog, where he's working on a second novel set in the hills and endless blue ridges of Virginia, the place he grew up and calls home.