Historical fiction set in Tennessee

The Mountains Under Her Feet ~ by Catherine Vance, 2023, historical fiction (East Tennessee), 308 pages

Isabel King is a daughter of the mountains and a child of rural east Tennessee. Over the course of half a century and two world wars, her family has grown, changed, and survived despite intergenerational trauma, the shadow of Native American genocide, and modest means.

Yet when the government evicts her and her neighbors from their homes, Isabel must once again find new beginnings and belonging upon the mountains under her feet.  What can she hang on to, and what must she let go?

Set against a backdrop of world-shaping events, The Mountains Under Her Feet is the story of a woman who faces change, exile, the challenge of building a family by choice, and the struggle to rise above prejudice and preconception.

I'm from East Tennessee.  Chattanooga (my hometown) is on the southern edge of the state, while this story is set near Knoxville.  I also lived there for a few years, so I was curious about this book when I first heard about it.  I've only read the first three chapter so far (set in 1936, 1911, and 1913), but the book pulled me in, making me want to know what happens next.

Here is the book's Epigraph:  "You don't know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."  — Isabel King (the book's main character)

Word of the Day

epigraph /ˈep.ə.ɡræf / noun = a saying or a part of a poem, play, or book put at the beginning of a piece of writing or a film, to give the reader some idea of what the piece is about.  (This definition is from Cambridge English Dictionary.)

Editing ~ You may get a kick out of all these editing jobs listed inside the book:

• Developmental Editing by Nyri A. Bakkalian, PhD
  
• Line Editing by Georgina Key
• Copyediting by D. Ynes Freeman
• Formatting and Proofreading by TNT Editing (Theodore N. Tinker)
• Proofreading by Amanda Mills Woodlee
  

As a former editor of two in-house publications, I had to do it all (including the layout and most of the writing).  So I was curious and asked Google:  "How is copyediting different from proofreading?"

• In copy editing, the copy is tidied up for conciseness and polished so that the information is delivered to the reader clearly.  Proofreading, however, is the last opportunity to catch errors and correct inconsistencies relating to how the page looks.
• Copyediting involves the "five Cs":  making the article clear, correct, concise, comprehensible, and consistent.
• Proofreading and copyediting are two different editing jobs with the same goal:  to perfect your writing before publication.  One is in charge of style consistency, while the other ensures the text is free from technical inconsistency.
• Copy editing is checking for the use of proper wordage, conciseness, and fact-checking.  Proofreading can be for both fiction and non-fiction to check spelling, grammar, and flow.
• What is Proofreading?  In traditional publishing, proofreading services refer to checking the document for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.  It’s the final editing step before production to ensure that the piece of writing is perfect.
• The professional proofreader does more than correct typographical errors.  The "proof" or "galley proof" is the final manuscript with all the designs, covers, and formatting.  It’s a test version of the book that will be published.

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate 

computers in different time zones — to talk about

our lives, our books, and our reading.

We are hosted by Deb Nance at Readerbuzz.