"From horse thieves to hurricanes, from shattered Southern myths to fractured family ties, from Nashville to Myrtle Beach to Miami, Low Country is a lyrical, devastating, fiercely original memoir" of one family's changing fortunes in the Low Country of South Carolina (Justin Taylor, author of Riding with the Ghost). J. Nicole Jones is the only daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, a family that grew rich building the hotels and seafood restaurants that draw tourists to Myrtle Beach. But at home, she is surrounded by violence and capriciousness: a grandfather who beats his wife, a barman father who dreams of being a country music star. At one time, Jones's parents can barely afford groceries; at another, her volatile grandfather presents her with a fur coat. After a girlhood of extreme wealth and deep debt, of ghosts and folklore, of cruel men and unwanted spectacle, Jones finds herself face to face with an explosive possibility concerning her long-abused grandmother that she can neither speak nor shake. And through the lens of her own family's catastrophes and triumphs, Jones pays homage to the landscapes and legends of her childhood home, a region haunted by its history: Eliza Pinckney cultivates indigo, Blackbeard ransacks the coast, and the Gray Man paces the beach, warning of Hurricane Hazel.

Part of our ever-popular Legends of America series, South Carolina Myths and Legends explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in South Carolina's history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in South Carolina history.

Part of our new and growing Mysteries and Legends series, Mysteries and Legends of South Carolina explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in South Carolina's history. Each episode included in the book is a story unto itself, and the tone and style of the book is lively and easy to read for a general audience interested in South Carolina history.

History, Mystery, and Romance in the Carolina Lowcountry! A haunted necklace, a trickster rabbit, an ingenious slave, a shrieking droll, and a fianc returned from the dead all come to life in Lynn Michelsohn's new collection of Carolina Lowcountry ghost stories and folklore from the four historic rice plantations making up Brookgreen GardensSouth Carolina's popular tourist attraction near Myrtle Beach. These enchanting folktales, tied to specific plantation locations and historical events, enrich the enjoyment of any visit to the Lowcountry for tourists, armchair travelers, or devotees of ghost stories and folklore. Lynn Michelsohn, a tenth generation Carolinian, is clearly drawn to history, mystery, and romance wherever she finds it, as her previous book, "Roswell, Your Travel Guide to the UFO Capital of the World!" explores intrigues of a different kind. Now, in "Tales from Brookgreen" her charming retelling of these sometimes-eerie, sometimes-sad, sometimes-humorous tales engages readers in characters and folkways unique to the Carolina Lowcountry.

Known and named for its lush, green surroundings, Greenwood, South Carolina, has recently been branded with the following statement: "There's Always Something Blooming in Greenwood." However, after reading Ghost Stories of Uptown Greenwood, you may find that this quaint town deserves a new slogan: "You're Never Alone in Uptown Greenwood"! Ghost Stories of Uptown Greenwood includes a multitude of hauntings and ghostly happenings that have been experienced and reported by average, everyday, unsuspecting people. These stories may entice you to ask yourself: "Is it possible that ghosts really do exist?" Additionally, they may give you the travel bug so you can see for yourself if these tales hold any credibility, especially if Greenwood isn't that far of a jaunt. Sit back, relax, enjoy the stories held within this book, and ask yourself the ever-important question . . . do you believe in ghosts?

In the wake of World War I in the small, Southern town of Bellhaven, South Carolina, the town folk believe they’ve found a little slice of heaven in a mysterious chapel in the woods. But they soon realize that evil can come in the most beautiful of forms. The people of Bellhaven have always looked to Ellsworth Newberry for guidance, but after losing his wife and his future as a professional pitcher, he is moments away from testing his mortality once and for all. Until he finally takes notice of the changes in his town . . . and the cardinals that have returned. Upon the discovery of a small chapel deep in the Bellhaven woods, healing seems to fall upon the townspeople, bringing peace after several years of mourning. But as they visit the “healing floor” more frequently, the people begin to turn on one another, and the unusually tolerant town becomes anything but. The cracks between the natural and supernatural begin to widen, and tensions rise. Before the town crumbles, Ellsworth must pull himself from the brink of suicide, overcome his demons, and face the truth of who he was born to be by leading the town into the woods to face the evil threatening Bellhaven.

From the Upstate to the Lowcountry, African Americans have had a gigantic impact on the Palmetto State. Unfortunately, their stories are often overshadowed. Collected here for the first time, this selection of essays by historian Damon L. Fordham brings these stories to light. Rediscover the tales of Samuel Smalls, the James Island beggar who inspired DuBose Heywards Porgy, and Denmark Vesey, the architect of the great would-be slave rebellion of 1822. Learn about the blacks who lived and worked at what is now Mepkin Abbey, the Spartanburg woman who took part in a sit-in at the age of eleven and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s visit to Charleston in 1967. These articles are well-researched and provide an enlightening glimpse at the overlooked contributors to South Carolinas past.

The history of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, can be summed up in four words: rice, sea, golf, and hammocks. The rivers threading through coastal South Carolina created an ideal environment for cultivating rice, and by the mid-18th century, vast plantations were producing profitable crops and wealthy landowners. But those plantations also produced malaria-carrying mosquitoes, so the landowners sent their families to the seashore for the summer and built the first houses on Pawleys Island starting in 1822. The end of slavery doomed the rice culture, and the old plantations were sold to rich Northerners for hunting and fishing retreats. By the 1960s, many of the old plantations were turned into golf courses, reviving the economy. But the beating heart of Pawleys Island remains the rhythm of the sea and what one early visitor called "the only beach in the world."

Retelling 30 myths and legends of the Eastern Cherokee, this book presents the stories with important details providing a culturally authentic and historically accurate context. Background information is given within each story so the reader may avoid reliance on glossaries, endnotes, or other explanatory aids. The reader may thus experience the stories more as their original audiences would have. This approach to adapting traditional literature derives from ideas found in reader-response and translation theory and from research in cognitive psychology and sociolinguistics.