In the Great Smoky Mountains wilderness in 1926, Nate Randolph and his five daughters struggle to maintain their farm, forests, family, and faith after the death of his wife, Callie. To make matters worse, they are battling a menacing business and an evil company manager trying to pilfer their land and raze their forest.

Sixteen-year-old Abbie Randolph falls in love for the first time while trying to mother her sisters and work with her father to save their family farm. At the same time, she has to preserve her own faith, which wavers after the death of her mother and the senseless murder of her fianci. Will the family survive intact? Will the farm be saved? Only a miracle could make it happen.

THIS CAPTIVATING STORY takes place in the Sugar Fork Valley of the Great Smoky Mountains wilderness during 1925–1926. Nate Randolph and his five unique daughters wrestle to survive after the death of Callie (his wife and their mother) as well as to maintain their farm, forests, family, and faith against an evil lumber company manager seeking to clear-cut their virgin woodland.

A cast of delightful characters, including gypsy siblings, Cherokee Indians, a granny midwife, a world-famous writer, and even a flesh-and-blood Haint, join our heroine, sixteen-year-old Abbie Randolph, in her life-and-death struggle. Abbie falls in love for the first time, helps run the farm, and mothers her independent sisters while battling to preserve her faith when senseless murders threaten to destroy her family and way of life.

Will the Randolph family survive intact? Will the farm be saved? Only a miracle could make it happen.

With the march of the industrial age, especially industrial lumbering, the roaring twenties, Prohibition, the increasing momentum for a national park, and the onslaught of a modern world, trains, and radio communication, the traditional life and ways of our Southern Highlanders were about to change forever.

Walt Larimore has been called one of America’s "best-known family physicians." He was awarded the 2004 Christianity Today Book Award for coauthoring Going Public with Your Faith and has been a Gold Medallion Book Award finalist three times. The author of the popular Bryson City Tales series, he lives in Monument, Colorado.

Larimore’s unsuccessful sequel to this year’s Hazel Creek finds Nate Randolph struggling to raise his five daughters, assisted only by the eldest, Abbie. While life is challenging, they get by on faith, hard work, and the help of neighbors. The local lumber company manager has been putting pressure on Nate to sell his land, and when he refuses, he is murdered, along with Abbie’s fiancé. Now Abbie must assume the responsibility of parenting her four younger sisters and tackle the lumber company intent on seizing her land. With the help of friends and neighbors, Abbie, still a young woman, takes on the lumber company in order to save her sisters. Larimore, an MD, portrays the community and landscape adequately but falls back upon the all-too-familiar story of traditional mountain folk pitted against ruthless, early-20th-century industrialization.. (Oct. 2) 2012 Reed Business Information

"Sugar Fork takes a unique look back to a lost and almost forgotten era in the history of the industrial age of the southern Appalachian Mountains—a transitional period in the history of Western North Carolina. As the fictional characters of Sugar Fork interact with figures whose names grace the pages of both local and national history books these characters come alive. I am delighted with Sugar Fork!"

"The Randolph family could easily fall apart trying to survive in the Great Smoky Mountain wilderness. The captivating stories and colorful voices of these characters, their lives and struggles, will stay with you long after you reluctantly come to the end. A good old-fashioned novel."

"Come hike with me through the virgin Smoky Mountain forest, along stream beds lush with trilliums, ferns, and orchids. Contrast this spectacular beauty with the simple life of an orphaned Southern Highlands maiden. See hope, faith, and love conquer hate and greed in a setting where good, simple folk wrestle evil in the bygone world of old Appalachia. Walt Larimore has done it once again in his powerful, heart-string, tugging page-turner, Sugar Fork."

"This book has it all . . . romance, suspense, faith, family, and great historical detail. Continuing on from Hazel Creek, the first book in the series, Abbie Randolf faces many challenges as she cares for her motherless siblings.The research and detail in this series is wonderful and this book will appeal to all ages and types of readers."

"Set in the beautiful Smoky Mountains, Walt Larimore has captured the spirit of the people of Sugar Fork. He takes us on a journey into the lives of the Randolph family, their friends, and the townspeople of Bryson City—a journey that readers will long remember!"

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