Reckoning

"Rusty Barnes’s long-await­ed first nov­el doesn’t dis­ap­point. It’s an action- and sus­pense-filled sto­ry of grow­ing up in the hills of Penn­syl­va­nia, where life is hard and often dan­ger­ous. The love sto­ry of Richard and Katie is hon­est, rich, and art­ful­ly told. This is an impres­sive debut.”
—Thomas Cobb, author of Crazy Heart and With Blood in Their Eyes

“Rarely can a writer ratch­et up a story’s ten­sion as relent­less­ly as Rusty Barnes does in Reck­on­ing, a beau­ti­ful­ly told and almost painful­ly sus­pense­ful nov­el in which the stakes couldn’t be high­er. I loved this book.”
—John M McManus, author of Bit­ter Milk

Richard Logan begins his sum­mer day as any four­teen-year-old might: work­ing a farm job bring­ing in hay, avoid­ing his hard-head­ed father, and hang­ing out with his friends. When he stum­bles onto an uncon­scious woman in the woods, he has no idea that the process of help­ing her will lead him into the dark­ness of the deeply held deceits of his rur­al Appalachi­an town. Both bru­tal and beau­ti­ful, Reck­on­ing shows the seams and lim­its of fam­i­ly love and com­mu­ni­ty tol­er­ance while Richard dis­cov­ers where man­hood tru­ly lies.

Get Reck­on­ing from the pub­lish­er, sun­ny­out­side press. Or use Ama­zon.