Wisp of a Thing

Summary

Alex Bledsoe’s The Hum and the Shiver wasnamed one of the best fiction books of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews. Now Bledsoe returns to the isolatedridges and hollows of the Smoky Mountains to spin an equally enchanting tale ofmusic and magic older than the hills.

Touched by a very public tragedy, musicianRob Quillen comes to Cloud County, Tennessee, in search of a song that mightease his aching heart. All he knows of the mysterious and reclusive Tufa iswhat he has read on the Internet: they are an enigmatic clan of swarthy,black-haired mountain people whose historical roots are lost in myth andcontroversy. Some say that when the first white settlers came to theAppalachians centuries ago, they found the Tufa already there. Others hint thatTufa blood brings special gifts.

Rob finds both music and mystery in themountains: close-lipped locals guard their secrets, even as Rob gets caught upin a subtle power struggle he can’t begin to comprehend. A vacationing wifegoes missing, raising suspicions of foul play. And a strange feral girl runswild in the woods, howling in the night like a lost spirit.

Change is coming toCloud County, and only the night wind knows what part Rob will play when thelast leaf falls from the Widow’s Tree—and a timeless curse must at last be broken.