Fans of Sharyn McCrumb’s popular southern historical Ballad saga will welcome with open arms a return to the misty and legendary hills of Appalachia with her long-awaited novel. Nora Bonesteel --- sage, seer and soothsayer who casts her subtle aura as the aging oracle of the hills throughout most of the series --- appears here in a new light. Revered by the residents of her home county, some of whom take her seriously, but respected by all, we have only known her as an elderly and eccentric woman of the hill