Series: Ballad
by Author Sharyn McCrumb
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (1993)
Sharyn McCrumb’s book, The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, fulfilled all my expectations. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and believed it earned its right as a New York Times Notable Book. The different storylines, complex characters, and underlying theme of the story make it truly magnificent. In ...
The Ballad of Frankie Silver (1999)
There's a bit less going on in this book than there is in most of the Ballad series.The general theme behind this book is miscarriages of justice - people accused and put to death for a crime they didn't commit but wouldn't confess who did. And considering the theme, it makes sense that there's ...
The Rosewood Casket (1997)
Meh.In a nutshell, this book is about how what goes around comes around; in the context of this novel, if you take someone's land, someone will eventually come and take your land (or the land of your future offspring). McCrumb uses the sad story of the Americas to illustrate a moral point, reachi...
King's Mountain (2013)
I've read about 6 Sharyn McCrumb books, and I must say, this is my favorite one. I love history, and my husband's family comes from the part of NC where this is set, so I found it especially interesting. It is definitely more history than fiction, but she writes it very well and she drew me int...
Tom Dooley (2011)
I have read most of Sharyn McCrumb's ballad novels. This ballad was made popular by the Kingston Trio and others in the '60s. McCrumb takes the ballad and does an enormous amount of research to come up with a story that could have really happened. She writes with a voice that puts the reader righ...
Ballad of Tom Dooley, The: A Ballad Novel (2011)
This is not Sharyn McCrumb's finest work. I have been a fan of her ballad novels for several years, but I can't rate this one very favorably. The good: McCrumb is gifted to understand and convey the history of Appalachia, its people and ways and landscape. This novel does not belie these strength...
The Ballad of Tom Dooley (Ballad, #9( (2011)
Poorly written... What could have been a great story was not done well. There is not one sympathetic character in the entire book. None of the characters change at all throughout the book. There is much repetition which gets tedious. The passages told in the voice of the lawyer are repetitive and...
The Ballad of Tom Dooley (2011)
An author's note explains the research she did to uncover as much truth about the actual murder that resulted in the hanging of Tom Dooley in 1868. That story is peopled by unpleasant characters: the sociopathic servant girl who may have instigated the incident, the naive young woman who was the...