My friends over at SheReads.org recently gifted me with an audio version of Kimberly Brock’s critically acclaimed novel The River Witch. Lucky me! I listened to most of it on a long drive to eastern Washington, and the unfolding story, narrated by Alison Edwards, made the miles slip by faster than I believed possible.

Novelist Kimberly Brock studied literature and theater and earned a degree in education. Her work has been published in several anthologies and magazines. She lives with her husband and three children near Atlanta, where she is currently at work on her next novel.

From the back cover: Can the river heal her?

Roslyn Byrne is twenty-four years old, broken in body, heart and soul. Her career as a professional ballet dancer ended with a car wreck and a miscarriage, leaving her lost and grieving. She needs a new path, but she doesn’t have the least idea how or where to start. With some shoving from her very Southern mama, she immures herself for the summer on Manny’s Island, Georgia, one of the Sea Isles, to recover.

There Roslyn finds a ten-year-old girl, Damascus, who brings alligators, pumpkins and hoodoo into her sorry life.

Roslyn rents a house from Damascus’s family, the Trezevants, a strange bunch. One of the cousins, Nonnie, who works in the family’s market, sees things Roslyn is pretty sure she shouldn’t, and knows things regular people don’t. Between the Trezevant secrets and Damascus’s blatant snooping and meddling, Roslyn finds herself caught in a mysterious stew of the past and present, the music of the river, the dead and the dying who haunt the riverbank, and a passion for living her new life.

The River Witch absolutely swept me away. Its prose flows like warm honey, and its examination of the human heart sometimes stole my breath. I fell in love with the mystical setting and magnetic characters, who drew me deeper and deeper into their story of sorrow and hope intertwined. The River Witch is surely one of the more imaginative stories in Southern literary fiction, with deeply resonant themes of family, love and redemption. Altogether, a bewitching tale from a mesmerizing Southern voice.

5/5 stars. Bewitching.

Visit Kimberly online and read the first two chapters here.