Piney Ridge Books

Originally published in 1950, The Enduring Hills was Janice Holt Giles's first novel. It is based in part on her own courtship and introduction to the Kentucky mountain country. Here, Giles introduces Hod and Mary Pierce and begins her Appalachian trilogy. Hod Pierce, a boy not unlike Henry Giles, who grows up on Piney Ridge, where generations of Pierces have made a living from the stubborn soil. Hod loves his people and the land but longs also for wider horizons, for more education, and for the freedom he imagines can be found in the outside world. It takes World War II to carry Hod away from the Ridge and out into the great world, and it is a long time before he comes back. After the war is over, Hod settles into marriage and a factory job in the city. Finally it is Mary, his city-bred wife, who sees at last that to Hod, Piney Ridge will always be home. In her preface to the second edition, Mrs. Giles wrote, "I believe [the story] is timeless and as the hand

Miss Willie , first published in 1951, is part of Giles's Piney Ridge Trilogy. It tells the story of an earnest teacher who moves to the hills of Kentucky to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. Zealously, she tries to change the ways of the stubborn and proud Appalachian people, but to no avail. They listen to her ideas about sanitation and other foolishness because to argue would be rude. But in the end they quietly go about their accustomed ways. Ultimately, Miss Willie realizes that the hill customs have a beauty and dignity of their own and that some of her efforts to reform them were ill-conceived. Her warmth, generosity, and humor help her bridge the gap and find fulfillment in Piney Ridge. This is a story of reconciliation and the coming together of two different ways of life. Above all, it is a story of people and of the land to which they belong.