The Ballad of Laurel Springs reads like a collection of interrelated short stories rather than one cohesive novel. It focuses on the lives of women in one family over several generations - one family, but not necessarily direct descendants, so it made keeping track of who-was-who a bit difficult. (A family tree somewhere in the book would have been quite helpful.) The action takes place in eastern Tennessee in a small town near what eventually becomes the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. A particularly interesting aspect of the book was how the town changed over the years (the blacksmith shop that became a gas station, etc.) and how some families were displaced from their land to make way for this park. The commentary on the effects of tourists was also spot-on and added some texture to the tale.

While I enjoyed the descriptions of the area, I found the tale disheartening. It was mainly women doing stupid things / making mistakes in their lives because of men or men doing violent things to or because of women. There is a recurring theme of “murder ballads.” Some of these women made really bad choices, even with the limited options some of them had. And one of the more modern ones made a really bad choice that just made me shake my head. There are lots of family secrets in this book, most of which are kept secret, so the next generation cannot learn from them. Indeed, the book starts with a 10-year-old in 2019 writing a report on an event that supposedly happened a number of generations before but that somehow reverberated with the current generation. By the time I reached the end of the book, I had to go back and re-read the first chapter for clarity.

Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book, although I was quite late in reading it. I bounced between the ARC and the published audiobook, courtesy of my public library. All opinions are my own.

Ok Janet Beard, I see you! What a stunning historical fiction read this was and definitely a read I will not soon forget.

Here's what I loved:

1) The originality of the story. This is a genre I read so much of and often it can be centered a little too heavily among WWII. What we get here is something completely different and unique. A generational tale of sorts taking place in the mountains of Appalachia and centered around is folklore.
2) I loved the vast array of voices the story is told through. Each chapter we get a different woman's POV and this alone kept me turning the pages as quickly as I could. It made for a very immersive reading experience.
3) It was simply interesting! Again, I have never read a story quite in this vein before and the way that the folklore was woven in and the music became a character in and of itself was simply incredible. All the stars for the author's creativity and writing alone!

This story delivered a beautiful blend of history and mystery and I just adored the story that was woven together here. Highly recommend to my fellow HF lovers! There is just so much to appreciate here.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the gifted e-copy!

I loved this one. This family saga that inspired Appalachian folklore and song. And a young girl trying her best to make sense
of it family history and stories. And learning to tell the difference. I highly recommend this one.

Loved this book! Rich character developed, beautifully written descriptions of Appalachia. I enjoyed the story and the family history, would recommend.

Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It is a generational story of a family of Appalachian women in Tennessee. The author focuses her story around a series of ballads original to the region, particularly one "murder ballad" that supposedly involves one of the female forbears of the characters. Although reading like a series of short stories, the book closely links each of the family member’s lives, sometimes reintroducing characters at different stages of their lives while focusing on another family member.

Thank you Simon Audio for the gifted audiobook.

Beginning with Grace in 2019 who needs something interesting for her history project and learns of a murder ballad supposedly written about one of her relations, this book then jumps back in time to the early 1900s and each chapter focuses on a woman in this family generation after generation going down the family line. And each chapter is titled after a folk song with the lyrics interwoven into the lives in these stories.

I loved the song element of this book. It adds so much texture and authenticity to the story.

I am not a fan however of this story telling style where we get brief snippets of the lives of 9 different women (very Homegoing-esque if you have read that). It very much is appropriate for this book, but I am missing some depth of character development that I crave.

Even though it's not my favorite style of book, it was still engaging and I was intrigued to keep going to find what happened. Plus the audiobook is a full cast of very talented women who only added to the depth the book does have.

The Ballad of Laurel Springs by Janet Beard is a fascinating juxtaposition of feminism and folk music in Appalachia. The basic story is that a ten-year-old girls finds out that her great-great-etc. grandfather stabbed his lover to death—and that the killing was memorialized in a 'murder ballad.” What she brings out is that her family’s story is part of long cultural legacy in which generations of women in her society have been affected by violence, which was then immortalized in folksongs that remind young girls where their place is, and what the consequences can be if they step outside of gender expectations. Beard novel is clearly informed by these real ballads and her love of Appalachian folklore. Both enjoyable and thought-provoking.

Intriguing structure to this book. Taking place in the back country hills of Tennessee over a period of about 100 years, each chapter tells the story of a different woman, each a descendant of the last. Each woman makes decisions that have repurcussions for the following generations. Each chapter becomes a snapshot of the times the women lived through. The hills are ever present, luring and looming over the characters. Old ballads are matched with each woman. A thread of violence & abandonment runs through the generations. A terrific book-club choice. Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a preview copy.

I requested this one because I grew up near East Tennessee. The references to folk and bluegrass songs and their references was a great premise I thought.

The Ballad of Lauren Springs
by Janet Beard
Pub Date: October 19
Gallery Books

From the internationally bestselling author of The Atomic City Girls, a provocative novel set in eastern Tennessee that “explores the legacies—of passion and violence, music and faith—that haunt one family across the generations” (Jillian Medoff, author of This Could Hurt).

* Historical Fiction * Fiction * Historical * Music
Thanks to Gallery Books and Net Galley for the ARC
I loved this book. The story was gripping and had me start to finish!
5stars

I really enjoyed reading this book, it was what I wanted in a historical novel. I loved that the main character had a dark family past and that the relative had a ballad on his murder. The story was really well done and I enjoyed reading this.

Set in the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Tennessee this is a story of generations. Each chapter is told from a different decade and a different woman’s voice, starting in the early 1900’s and ending in the early 2000’s. The story begins with a song-a folksy tune about a girl that met her end at the hands of her lover. This song, amongst others, is shared from generation to generation and weaves its way through the lives of the people that live in Laurel Springs.

Because each chapter is different in character and time period, this book feels a lot like a collection of short stories set mostly in the same place. I enjoyed the stories and found them interesting but would have liked to connect to the characters more but the short time I spent with them in each chapter didn’t really allow that.

Maybe this was intentional. The music and lyrics became their own character in this book and it was the folklore that really drove each individual story. The songs are haunting and sometimes violent, unlike the sweet bluegrass songs I grew up listening to my grandparents sing and perform as I grew up. What was familiar to me is the way music tells a story and how that story gets passed down from one generation to another. I think this is what interested me the most about this book.

There’s mystery, historical importance and haunting characters in this book. It releases today if you’d like to pick it up 📚

Thank you to @gallerybooks and @netgalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3/5 ⭐️ I liked it.
.

This book was good but I won't be running to the book store to buy it. It was interesting enough and I liked the setting but it was just a little blah.

What happened to Polly? Polly's the subject of a mountain murder ballad that runs throughout this tale of the women in a family in Southern Appalachia. The novel starts with your Grace in the present and then moves back to 1891 and the story of Polly's sister Pearl, then forward to Pearl's daughter, and so on, to include one young girl who is related as the result of an extramarital affair. Each woman is vivid, each experiences more pain than they deserve, and Beard has used them effectively to show how change came to the region. Everyone is linked in some way and I'll admit that I had to pause at the beginning of several chapters to remember how they fit in (and in one case, it wasn't clear for a bit). Several secondary characters (Violet for example) span the more central stories. The device worked beautifully for me because it's how a sprawling family works. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. Terrific characters and wonderful storytelling, AND, you will eventually read Polly's story.

This is an epic historical fiction book that will stay with this reader for a long time. This story is amazingly written and tragic but soooo good!!!!!! I highly recommend this book

I love family sagas, and The Ballad of Laurel Springs is a good one! Set in Appalachia from 1907 through 2019, the story is told through the POV's of eight women. I was immediately engaged with the characters, and loved how as the author moves us forward through the generations, she also fills in information about the previous ones so that we understand their lives better.

There's almost a lyrical quality to Ms. Beard's writing, and her characters ring true. This was a satisfying read, and one which shows that while each generation makes their own choices, those who went before us are always with us in ways that we may not fully realize.

My sincere thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for allowing me to read an ARC of the novel which is scheduled for publication on 10/19/21. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

Well done and evocative multigenerational novel. Given the number of different perspectives, Beard did an excellent job keeping each protagonist and timeline distinct. All of the women were not likeable, but they were all complex, interesting and relatable. Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC copy for my review.

I wanted to love this story, but the plot line was confusing and being from East Tennessee I just didn’t find the Appalachian stories that believable.

Author Janet Beard’s latest novel, The Ballad of Laurel Springs, brings the generations and secrets of an Eastern Tennessee family to life, intertwining them with the region’s traditional ballads and blues. Although reading like a series of short stories, the book closely links each of the family member’s lives, sometimes reintroducing characters at different stages of their lives while focusing on another family member.

Beard captures readers’ interest from the book’s opening sentence, as ten-year-old Grace narrates: “Aunt Dee told me about the murder.” Grace’s family history project is due soon to her language arts teacher. Grace’s mom has helped with the family tree, and her grandmother has sent photos, but without a family story, the project remains incomplete. When Grace asks her mom’s younger sister, Aunt Dee replies, “We got stores for sure, Gracie. . . . One of our ancestors killed somebody.” Suddenly, Grace learns the story of her great-great-great-great grandfather Will who killed his girlfriend, and hears the family legend that “Pretty Polly,” a traditional ballad, commemorates the murder. This is only the beginning of the first story, titled “Pretty Polly,” and focusing on Grace in 2019.

Next comes “The Wife of Usher’s Well,” set in 1907-1908, and centered around Grace’s four-times great-grandmother, Pearl, the younger sister of the murder victim Polly. Now an adult, Pearl is married and of mother of several children. However, Pearl’s narrative is less about her family than about two teachers who arrive on the mountain to open a new mission school and about how Pearl comes to wonder if her deceased sister’s friend, Violet Nickson, might be a witch.

Pearl and Abel’s son Jake plays an important role in stories three and four. “The Wayfaring Stranger” opens in 1925 with its narrator, Miriam—Pearl’s daughter-in-law—providing another attention-grabbing opening line: “My husband returned from the dead in 1925.” Believed a casualty of World War I, Jake reappears with no explanation of his whereabouts since the war. Not until the fourth story, “Careless Love Blues,” set in 1937, does another member of the extended family learn the story Jake still has not told his wife Miriam.

Story after story, gradually moving forward through time, Janet Beard reveals this Eastern Tennessee family’s secrets, every connected to the music at the heart of local culture. In the last story, the author circles back to 1891 and to the voice of Polly, the murder victim, to Grace’s four-times great grandfather Will, to Polly’s friend Violet, and to the ballad “Pretty Polly.”

In her acknowledgments, Beard speaks of being “raised on the songs and stories of the mountains.” Her vivid accounts dramatize regional life as experienced by young Grace’s ancestors and family members, particularly the women, whose lives seem inextricably woven into the haunting and tragic traditional music.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster for an advance reader copy.

grace is searching for a project for her history class, she learns that her four times great grandfather stabbed his lover to death. There is a ballad about this murder. Grace continues her search to find out the truth. very interesting read.