5+ stars for Daughters of Green Mountain Gap by Teri M Brown #historicalfiction #womensfiction #fiction #mustread #booksworthreading
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  • N. N. Light
    • Feb 7
    • 3 min read

5+ stars for Daughters of Green Mountain Gap by Teri M Brown #historicalfiction #womensfiction #fiction #mustread #booksworthreading



Title: Daughters of Green Mountain Gap

Author: Teri M Brown

Genre: Historical Fiction

 

Book Blurb:

 

An Appalachian granny woman. A daughter on a crusade. A granddaughter caught between the two.

 

Maggie McCoury, a generational healer woman, relies on family traditions, folklore, and beliefs gleaned from a local Cherokee tribe. Her daughter, Carrie Ann, believes her university training holds the answers. As they clash over the use of roots, herbs, and a dash of mountain magic versus the medicine available in the town’s apothecary, Josie Mae doesn’t know whom to follow. But what happens when neither family traditions nor science can save the ones you love most?

 

Daughters of Green Mountain Gap weaves a compelling tale of Maggie, Carrie Ann, and Josie Mae, three generations of remarkable North Carolina women living at the turn of the twentieth century, shedding light on racism, fear of change, loss of traditions, and the intricate dynamics within a family. Author Teri M. Brown skillfully navigates the complexities of their lives, revealing that some questions are not as easy to answer as one might think.

 

 

My Review:

 

Daughters of Green Mountain Gap is the story of three generations of women, faith versus science, tradition and change. Mother, daughter, granddaughter.

 

Maggie is a granny woman, a skilled midwife. But Maggie has spent her life learning and practicing healing beyond childbirth. Her knowledge of herbs is almost secondary to her gift of healing through faith and mental attitude. Her daughter Carrie Ann rejected Maggie’s style of healing, believing her ideas were crazy and more like magic. When Carrie Ann left to pursue a medical education, with Maggie’s blessing, she also left her daughter Josie Mae behind for Maggie to raise on her farm in Green Mountain Gap holler. Carrie Ann returned to practice medicine but in the near town of Burnsville. Josie Mae matures, caught between her mother’s and her grandmother’s worlds.

 

This is the point where the story begins for the reader. The time frame for Daughters of Green Mountain Gap is 1892-1894 with an epilogue set in 1926. The setting is North Carolina hill country and on the Cherokee nation. The dynamics between the three women is a remarkable story. The characterizations are deep and develop to the very end. The events are heart tugging and page turning.

 

Ms. Brown weaves her story of folklore and science using knowledge of herbs and history. I didn’t question it, and it wasn’t overwhelming. I’ve read books that seem more like the author trying to prove her knowledge and spotlight her research. Ms. Brown’s style is flawless in this respect.

 

Evocative and thought-provoking. Daughters of Green Mountain Gap exposes the inexplicable complexities of the relationships between the generations of the three women.

 

My Rating: 5+ stars

 

Buy it Now:   

 

 

 

 

 

 


Author Biography:

 

Born in Athens, Greece as an Air Force brat, Teri M Brown came into this world with an imagination full of stories to tell. She now calls the North Carolina coast home, and the peaceful nature of the sea has been a great source of inspiration for her creativity.

 

Not letting 2020 get the best of her, Teri chose to go on an adventure that changed her outlook on life. She and her husband, Bruce, rode a tandem bicycle across the United States from Astoria, Oregon to Washington DC, successfully raising money for Toys for Tots. She learned she is stronger than she realized and capable of anything she sets her mind to.

 

Teri is a wife, mother, grandmother, and author who loves word games, reading, bumming on the beach, taking photos, singing in the shower, hunting for bargains, ballroom dancing, playing bridge, and mentoring others. Teri’s debut novel, Sunflowers Beneath the Snow, is a historical fiction set in Ukraine, her second, An Enemy Like Me, a WWII historical fiction, launched in January 2023, and her third, Daughters of Green Mountain Gap, an Appalachian granny woman tale, will launch in January 2024. Learn more at www.terimbrown.com.

 

Social Media Links:

 

Threads: @terimbrown_author 

 

Reviewed by: Brenda

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