Ann Hite Author of Ghost On Black Mountain Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
"Will intrigue readers eager for a Southern Gothic tale, and suggests a promising future for the Black Mountain novels to come."—Publisher's Weekly
"Multiple female narrators add dimension and perspective to Hite's first novel, and the sightings and visits from the spirits are often appropriately eerie . . . [An] artfully woven tale." --Library Journal
"[Ann Hite] twists folklore with the genres of Southern Gothic, paranormal and literary fiction like a fine, fat pretzel, a guilty pleasure after midnight . . . A richly layered tale of haints, hoodoo and heebie-jeebies, mayhem and murder, love and betrayal."—Alabama Mobile Register
“Hite paints a loving portrait of rural mountain life in the early twentieth century, and characters are nuanced and true”--Atlanta Magazine
“And while this book is a ghost story, at its heart, it is the story of five
women, their choices and the consequences of those choices.” --Hattie's Books (Brunswick, Georgia)
Ghost On Black Mountain released by Gallery Books an
imprint of Simon & Schuster September 13, 2011.
Check out the Book Trailer.
Often I feel I’ve
channeled the Black
Mountain characters from
several of my eccentric relatives from long ago. I was born in Georgia
and left before I was a year old. I didn’t return for good until I was
ten. That’s when my mother brought my brother and me back to live with
my
grandmother. It was then I began to absorb both the wonderful and eerie
tales told
by my extended family. One of the first stories I heard upon arrival at
my
grandmother’s home was about a fighter pilot—an air force base was
nearby—had
crashed into the house down the street. The eighty-year old home was
owned by
two old maid sisters: one who had spent her life in a wheelchair and the
other caring for her. The whole street ran to watch the fire. Some
claim to have
seen the pilot in the front seat of the jet trying to get out. Others
claim to
have heard one of the sisters screaming. The only survivor was the
sister in
the wheelchair. If that’s not the stuff for stories, I don’t know what
is. This
atmosphere of tall tales, spells, and spirits gave birth to Black
Mountain.
I didn’t have a name for the community back then, but I spent many hours
writing and forcing my little brother to listen to my stories of ghosts
and
goblins. Ah, but children do grow up. Or do they?
The fictional community of Black Mountain
finally got its name while I was flipping hamburgers in my kitchen one night in
the spring of 2004.
Mama warned me against marrying HobbsPritchard. She saw the future in her
tealeaves, death.
These two sentences shot through my mind in a strong
southern voice that was not my own. Nellie Pritchard was alive and begging to tell her story, And so it was to be. Not
only did she appear with much to say, but several different characters lined up
to tell their tales and inherently tell more about Nellie in the process. Many
short stories later a novel appeared: Ghost On Black Mountain.
As some of the old folks on Black Mountain
would say: ‘The mountain is alive as me or you. If you listen, you can hear her
breath. You can feel her moan. Once you get her in your blood, they’re ain’t no
leaving. No matter how far you go it’s the only home you’ll ever know.’
"Will intrigue readers eager for a Southern Gothic tale, and suggests a promising future for the Black Mountain novels to come."—Publisher's Weekly