Michael Cogdill
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She-Rain, A Story of Hope
Author: Michael CogdillMichael Cogdill


In the early 20th Century, a pair of North Carolina mountain children sow the seed of a love that becomes their only solace in the hard yet beautiful world they know. They grow it from steep ground of poverty, ignorance, and violence. A landscape so brutal it can kill hope long before claiming life.

Bloodshed years later finally sends Frank Locke on the run, deep into wilderness, abandoning his extraordinary love, Mary Lizbeth. When a whitewater river washes this desperate soul into the hands of Sophia, he discovers a luminous woman steeped in mystery, trapped in a tragically brilliant life. Far ahead of her time. Secreted from the world. As she awakens Frank’s mind, they rise to meet a love that binds three people for a lifetime.

This love triangle forms a beauty no one sees coming. From the wilds of Appalachia, crossing nearly a century, it runs deep into a lush American fortune, and lives in letters of adoration and hope of the least expected.

In a rhapsody of Southern voices, mingling hilarity and sorrow, She-Rain speaks of lives soaring beyond heartbreak, fundamentalism, and self-destruction. Through the most graceful longing, two women in love with one man ultimately prove the power of human hearts to answer high callings. They show us all how to heal -- and thrive -- to the very end.

Editions (1 of 1)

She-Rain: A Story of Hope
She-Rain: A Story of Hope
Author: Michael CogdillMichael Cogdill
Paperback
3/31/2010
MORGAN JAMES PUB
ISBN13 : 9781600377020

Reader Reviews

Review 10/12/09

Source: From John Jeter, author of The Plunder Room
Date: May, 2009

Michael Cogdill has managed to do what few journalists have done before: Move with stylistic grace from the formulaic demands of television to poetic prose that shimmers through his debut novel. Some of us have taken more than a decade to break the enslaving bonds of journalism’s tried-and-true habits so that we might be able to write serviceable fiction. But many don’t get close to the mellifluous beauty the author here seems to pour out as effortlessly as crystal-clear moonshine. At the same time, Mr. Cogdill has retained his reporter’s keen eye and his sharp ear … that of an orchestra’s maestro (or, more accurately, the sub-decibel hearing of a blue-tick hound dog). On a vast and multilayered canvas, Mr. Cogdill takes us into the brutal lives of harrowingly real characters -- some we’ve seen in other places in other circumstances, wrought by other hands -- yet he carves them deeply into our souls so that we bleed with each of them in every aching step toward their redemption.

Review 10/12/09

Source: From Ruta Fox, Writer, Editor, Entrepreneur (Creator of the AH Ring, made famous by Oprah)
Date: April, 2009

Michael Cogdill is the heir to Pat Conroy. His feel for the nuances, ear for the language and ability to vividly describe the beauty of rural North Carolina, are astounding. His storytelling ability, his infectious characters and his authentic Southern soul permeate this marvelous, monumental and moving book.

Review 10/12/09

Source: From Dr. Cheryl McClary, author of The Commitment Chronicles
Date: January, 2009

“Once in a great while something unflinchingly beautiful touches our lives and we are forever changed. Such is the gift of She-Rain, Michael Cogdill’s first novel. He weaves a masterpiece of woundedness, love, death, and redemption that breaks your heart as it mends your soul. Just as the mountains embrace the cool breath of the she-rain, the novel cradles you until the final word ...a soon to be best seller!” Cheryl McClary Ph.D., J.D., Professor, attorney, and author of The Commitment Chronicles: The Power of Staying Together. (National Library Book winner, 2007)

Review 10/12/09

Source: Actor/Writer/Director, Peter MacNicol -- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001493/
Date: December, 2008

"I'm reading your beautiful novel, and if I may add to what you've undoubtedly heard, such gorgeous prose, such beautiful writing, such singing speech! Michael, soooo Southern in its music and perfect word choice. You write like no other living Southerner, certainly none that I know. Only among the dead can I find your forbears -- somewhere between "A" for James Agee and "W" for Thomas Wolfe. It is so exquisitely sounded out on the page that oddly I find myself muttering certain passages out loud to myself, common enough occurrence when I read poetry but rarely prose. Buckle up!!


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