The Ridge Walker is set in the 1940's at a time when the mountains of North Carolina still harbored remote and isolated communities. The novel explores the human drama of sacrifice, forgiveness, spirituality, and motherhood. With the nearest doctor over an hour away, people living along Stumpy Ridge have no access to healing except from Jess Shew, the last Celtic medicine woman east of the Smokies. When one of her patients dies, Jess takes the dead woman's child as her own, to protect it from the woman's estranged and dangerous boyfriend, Doug Helms.Doug Helms suspects Jess stole his son and spreads tales accusing her of witchcraft. The local sheriff threatens to take her child if she continues with, what he considers, her dangerous practice. The Ridge people are split between those who believe Doug's stories about Jess, and those still loyal and dependent on her treatments and medication. Jess is torn between her lifelong dedication to healing the Stumpy Ridge People, and her growing love for her adopted child.See jackhemphill.com for more information on The Ridge Walker as well as the following books by Jack Hemphill: Exhibition of the Song Bo Paintings, a historical fiction set in 1954 Indo-China. The story illustrates the struggle of the Vietnamese people to maintain their national identity against the flood of communistic ideology pouring into the country. Redbriar, a literary fiction novel about a man's long journey to reconnect with his daughter who had been taken from him by the court. It is set in the mountains of North Carolina