Marrying Stone

Any successful scholar will make personal sacrifices to enhance his research. But most are never expected to include a suspect marriage to a barefoot hill girl. Musicologist J. Monroe Farley hopes to prove that the wilds of the Ozark Mountains preserved the language and music of an era gone by. Hill girl Meggie Best only hopes for a handsome prince to make her dreams come true. Neither expects to have life suddenly upended by a jar of bad piccalilli and a skunk.

This story set in the Ozarks of 1903 recalls mountain ways and wiles as unique as the music the traveling scholar seeks. Publisher's Weekly awarded a starred review and described the story as "rich and heady as a jug of mountain 'donk' - and just as hard to put down."