Author Talk: Ramey Channell "The Witches of Moonlight Ridge" 10/29

Moonlight and magic on an Alabama mountain, witches and a mysterious stagecoach inn—who can resist? Come to the Moon Lake Community Library and meet author Ramey Channell on Monday, October 29 at 6:30 p.m., when she will read from The Witches of Moonlight Ridge (St. Leonard’s Field, 2016), the follow up to Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge (St. Leonard’s Field, 2010). Chanell will talk about her writing and autograph books for readers. This is a free, family-friendly event.

The Moonlight Ridge series will beguile readers looking for southern stories told with lyrical voices and healthy doses of magical realism. Channell, a native of Leeds, Alabama, says, "I learned every precious thing I know from the mountain folk who made up my family and community, and the animals who were our constant companions. I can't stop writing about the surprising magic and mystery of the world I was born into."

Sweet Music on Moonlight Ridge
(Book 1 of the Moonlight Ridge Series)
What happens when two precocious 8-year-old cousins are set free in the backwoods of 1950s Alabama, unfettered, unrestrained, and virtually unsupervised, in a world where magic, superstition, and enchantment are as ordinary as the trees, the mountain, and the abundant animal life? Lily Claire and her “almost twin” cousin, William Theophilus Greenberry Nock, explore the wooded trails and enchanted bowers on Moonlight Ridge, are touched by grief when a member of the family loses his life on the railroad, and save the community from tragedy by rescuing a missing baby who is lost in the woods. Willie T. is declared a hero, has his picture published in the local newspaper, and Lily Claire learns what it means to be a real hero.

The Witches of Moonlight Ridge
(Book 2 of the Moonlight Ridge Series)
Autumn has come to Moonlight Ridge, bringing unusual weather, startling hauntings, shadows, and strangers, as Halloween and “the witchin’ season” arrive. Lily Claire and Willie T. find a new friendship when their jovial fourth grade teacher is replaced by the just-turned-twenty-year-old Erskine Batson, the town’s charismatic garbage collector and “man of letters.” Erskine’s budding romance with a mysterious and beautiful young woman, who haunts the abandoned stage coach inn on the mountain, awakens memories and local legends of tragedy and possible witchcraft on Moonlight Ridge. When Mr. Vales, the school principal, goes missing, the town sheriff and the leader of the local Ku Klux Klan are on the prowl, and Erskine narrowly escapes a fatal encounter with a falling tree, Lily Claire and Willie T. bravely sort things out and learn to accept those things that can’t be changed.