To Stand on Solid Ground: A Civil War Novel Based on Real People and Events

By G. Keith Parker and Leslie Parker Borhaug (local authors)

Independent Press Award-2021 Distinguished Favorite

The 2020 Award of Excellence and the 2020 Lighthouse Award

            -North Carolina Society of Historians

“. . .thought provoking, educational, enthralling, haunting, deserving of a second read, and worthy of praise and recognition.” 

Based on real people and real events, To Stand on Solid Ground brings to life an unusual relationship between Confederate loyalists and Union sympathizers. North Carolina secedes from the Union the same day Transylvania County is formed. It is the same day Robert Hamilton is appointed as its first sheriff. As a Union sympathizer, Robert must find a way to uphold his oath as sheriff and yet be true to his conscience, even if it means bending the rules. Its deeply human take on the Civil War and the multiple battlefronts that challenged one mountain county, struggles which our nation still faces today, dares to address the profound need to support each other in a time of intense pol

Sons of Mercy and Justice: A Transylvania Story

By G. Keith Parker and Leslie Parker Borhaug (local authors)

The 2013 Clark Cox Historical Fiction Award

            -North Carolina Society of Historians

“This is the magnificent story of the McGaha family and how they lived their lived in the mountains of Western North Carolina. It describes their way of life in such a way that the reader is able to share their emotions in all different situations and at all levels. Every now and then the story shocks us, surprises us, as something happens that was not expected . . . just as it happens in real life, i.e., an unexpected death . . . and there are plenty in the book, all ages.”

Sons of Mercy and Justice: A Transylvania Story weaves two local tales into one by the end, one set in 1800s history and the other in modern times. The McGaha father-son story has the compassionate Craf being drafted into the Confederate army, halting the no-cost way station for drovers and their stock he and his wife managed. His burdened conscience over slavery and the divided land is compounded by their loss of several children and worry about his family. Their family and neighbors build a local chapel with the hope of bringing divided folks back together through worship. Their son, V.B., becomes the youngest county sheriff and then a federal I.R.S. agent, a “revenuer” seeking illegal activities and recording them in his pocket diary and official typed reports.

The modern tale brings the 16-year-old Millie to visit her grandmother. She befriends a young Hispanic girl, Ellie, and a local boy, both of whom are being threatened by the boy’s two aggressive older brothers. The old revenuer pocket diary of V.B. McGaha gives her the courage she needs. Both tales give insight into folks who settled the Western North Carolina Mountains, underlining the strength in community that defines the area today.

The Village and The Turnpike

By Charles A. Burden, Douglas Pace, and Patricia Lee Stahl (local authors)

Come join five hearty individuals as they take a historic hike, sometimes climbing and crawling, from then to now along an old abandoned early road, a turnpike, to capture life in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains from earlier times. Experience with these individuals the birth and growth of a tiny mountain village into a viable, healthy community at the Gateway to the now-famous DuPont State Recreational Forest, and several other National and State Parks and Forests. Plenty of historic photographs reveal life and people then and now.