West Virginia Still

by Valerie Banfield, Sue Copeland

October 1929. After the stock market nosedives, and before his duped investors tally their losses, Amos Kimble hits the rails. When a thieving hobo ejects him from the boxcar as it passes Spencer, West Virginia, Amos finds himself in a heap o’ trouble, the likes of which he’d never imagined. Goldie Morgan doesn’t like the looks of the new patient. Something is off, and it isn’t just his mental state. April 1976. Lois Shaffer’s first day on the job at Spencer State Hospital unhinges her enough to send her running far, far away. If not for her empty pocketbook, her children, and her useless excuse for a husband, she’d answer the urge to flee. The evidence surrounding her is a stark reminder that the line between coping and crumbling is all too thin.

273 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 23, 2018

About the author

Valerie Banfield is a talespinner to the lost, the loved, and the found. She is the author of eighteen novels, including While I Count the Stars, winner of the Cascade Award. She loves to take little known tidbits from eras gone by and use them as the backdrop for imperfect but endearing characters who dangle between loss and hope as they wend their way through troubled times and circumstances. When she’s not writing, reading, or rummaging through newspaper archives, she’s probably walking the dog, weaving a basket, counting the stars, or savoring the majesty of an Indiana sunrise.

Reviews

[Mel Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

West Virginia

Wonderfully woven story. It was confusing at moments when the timeline jumped but it always wove back together somehow. Good look at mental illness and it’s forms.

[Toni Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow pace at first, but the two stories quickly picked up and came together. It was a nice read and I enjoyed the characters and what they had to say.