The Moonshiner's Daughter: A Southern Coming-of-Age Saga of Family and Loyalty

by Donna Everhart

If you fell in love with 1960s North Carolina when reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, Donna Everhart’s The Moonshiner’s Daughter will transport you right back. Everhart’s sensitive and expert storytelling will capture you in this Southern coming-of-age novel!
 
Set in North Carolina in 1960 and brimming with authenticity and grit, The Moonshiner’s Daughter evokes the singular life of sixteen-year-old Jessie Sasser, a young woman determined to escape her family’s past . . .
 
Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser’s daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she’s concerned, moonshine caused her mother’s death a dozen years ago.
 
Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth—one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school’s gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the “monster” inside Jessie.
 
Resenting her father’s insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals long-held grudges. As she endeavors to right wrongs old and new, Jessie’s loyalties will bring her to unexpected revelations about her family, her strengths—and a legacy that may provide her with the answers she has been longing for.

• ISBN10: 1496717023
• ISBN13: 9781496717023
• Publish Date: 31 December 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Kensington Publishing
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/isbn/9781496717023

Reviews

[Molly J(Cover To Cover Cafe)]

Living in Johnston County, North Carolina, or as it's known, JoCo,home of where many a moonshine gets made, I couldn't wait to dive into this book. This book is the second one I've read by Everhart, and her talent is as strong here as in the other one. She hooked me from page 1 and took me through a whirlwind of emotions and held me until the last page was reached. 

Jessie Sasser witnessed a horrific tragedy at a very young age. That tragedy was a result of her family's livelihood, and it became the reasoning for her hate of the family's business. She's filled with insecurities, dealing with so much more than just her family. Suffering from my own insecurities and eating disorder many moons ago, I truly felt as if I had a connection with Jessie. 

This is so much more than just a story of a moonshiner's daughter. It's an emotionally gripping, powerfully moving, page turning novel of a young woman coming of age. Heart wrenching, raw, and absolutely gritty, this is one novel written with epic proportions and details and you won't soon forget it. Do not delay. Grab this amazing novel up today and hang on for the ride of a lifetime. 

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Publisher and was under no obligation to post a review, positive or negative.*