Still River

In book 2 of The Redemption Mountain Collection, high mountain Appalachian girl Aniah Galcinda Moray is twelve years old when the Confederate Home Guard kills her family-her magical Johnson mother, her Melungeon father, her two brothers, and the baby. Perched high above the scene in a tree house when the massacre takes place, Aniah and her deaf and mute little sister Gracie watch in horrified silence as violent men destroy their world and set the two young girls off on a perilous journey to survive the outer world at the beginning of the American Civil War. Thrust from their home, Aniah and Gracie travel across the war-torn 1861 American South, heading for Redemption Mountain, where the magical Johnson kinswomen-their only living family, and the only place they will be safe-reside. Being of Melungeon descent, a mythical tri-race of Appalachian people, Aniah has the skin of a black woman, the "sunshine black" hair of Native American descent, and the bright blue eyes of a European. Straddling races and worlds, Aniah's journey is fraught with hostility, racial tension, the violence of war, coming to terms with her magical abilities, and the ticking awareness of her developing body in a world where men take what they want, especially from a pretty, young mixed-blood girl like Aniah. Jason Taylor Morgan's Still River draws on the magical realism, deep character development and beautiful language of its predecessor and book 1 of the series, The Red Field. It is an excellent next installment to the much-loved Redemption Mountain series.