"Hang the Moon" by Jeannette Walls
Sallie Kincaid is a tough cookie, challenged in life to win the admiration and respect of the father that sent her away as a child to appease his new wife. During Prohibition-era Virginia her dad “the Duke” assumes the role of leader in a small town where he owns and operates the Emporium, a general store-front that sells everything under the sun, a lots of whiskey. The Duke collects monthly from sharecroppers and ramshackle home rentals. When rent can’t be paid, he accepts barters which make up a unique inventory in the Emporium. Along with his trusted attorney and the local sheriff, they hold court and wield their own kind of Kincaid justice. The Duke is currently on his fourth wife, Sallie’s mother being the second.
When the Duke’s current wife dies, 18 year-old Sallie is summoned back home to tutor her half-brother and live once more in the “big house”. Sallie is smart, much like her father, and surprisingly doesn’t hold grudges for long. The drama ramps up when the Duke dies, and by a convoluted series of mishaps, Sallie takes over the position of her father and inherits his kingdom. Sallie navigates a malicious and deadly feud with a family of moonshiners, threats to her inheritance from surprise siblings, romance and midnight whiskey runs to the next county. She suffers losses at the hands of racism and is nearly suffocated by the binds of her gender. A tomboy and thrill seeker, Sallie can be compared to her father. But Sallie’s moral compass and her compassion elevate her character. Instead of bitterness from being cast aside as a child, Sallie puts family above all else and changes generations of injustice providing a future for the Kincaid's.
~Kim Luke
When the Duke’s current wife dies, 18 year-old Sallie is summoned back home to tutor her half-brother and live once more in the “big house”. Sallie is smart, much like her father, and surprisingly doesn’t hold grudges for long. The drama ramps up when the Duke dies, and by a convoluted series of mishaps, Sallie takes over the position of her father and inherits his kingdom. Sallie navigates a malicious and deadly feud with a family of moonshiners, threats to her inheritance from surprise siblings, romance and midnight whiskey runs to the next county. She suffers losses at the hands of racism and is nearly suffocated by the binds of her gender. A tomboy and thrill seeker, Sallie can be compared to her father. But Sallie’s moral compass and her compassion elevate her character. Instead of bitterness from being cast aside as a child, Sallie puts family above all else and changes generations of injustice providing a future for the Kincaid's.
~Kim Luke
Book Blurb~
Sallie Kincaid is the daughter of the biggest man in a small town, the charismatic Duke Kincaid. Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie remembers little about her mother who died in a violent argument with the Duke. By the time she is just eight years old, the Duke has remarried and had a son, Eddie. While Sallie is her father’s daughter, sharp-witted and resourceful, Eddie is his mother’s son, timid and cerebral. When Sallie tries to teach young Eddie to be more like their father, her daredevil coaching leads to an accident, and Sallie is cast out.
Nine years later, she returns, determined to reclaim her place in the family. That’s a lot more complicated than Sallie expected, and she enters a world of conflict and lawlessness. Sallie confronts the secrets and scandals that hide in the shadows of the Big House, navigates the factions in the family and town, and finally comes into her own as a bold, sometimes reckless bootlegger.
You will fall in love with Sallie Kincaid, a feisty and fearless, terrified and damaged young woman who refuses to be corralled.
