Book excerpt: Deana Perry, the daughter of a coal miner, and Will Brinson, the son of a wealthy coal operator, have tried to leave the shadows of their powerful fathers and the painful secrets of Ash Grove, Kentucky, far behind them. But now Cleave Brinson is dead and Wayman Perry is dying. Will, who wonders if his father was capable of murder, finds himself drawn back to Ash Grove determined to unravel the mystery of his mother's death. Deana has managed to build a life for herself and her daughter Sophie. But when she returns to Ash Grove, will their fragile happiness be able to survive the truth? Lee Smith writes, "Wanda Fries goes straight for the heart in Ash Grove, a story of lost love and terrible secrets in an Appalachian mining town. Both gritty and poetic, real and transcendent, Ash Grove is a literary page-turner, heralding a major new talent. Wanda Fries writes from deep within the contemporary culture of Appalachia, and she gets it all just exactly right." From New Southerner, in a review by Christina Lovin--"A tale spun out as if from a reel of dynamite fuse, Fries' Ash Grove winds a precarious, rocky way through darkness, back into the light. Like the mine shafts that pierce the peaks around Ash Grove, through the deft storytelling of the author, the plots twist and turn, narrowing into blackness and dead ends. Characters disappear around corners, and then reappear as suddenly as a coal train around a hairpin bend. A delicious delving into the stony black heart of a town and its long-held secrets, Ash Grove provides that rollercoaster feeling one has on a fast ride along a mountain two-lane: frightening, exhilarating, but in the end, awfully satisfying." Silas House--"Ash Grove is a beautiful novel."