Fiction. In the drought-ridden mining town of Cuzzert, West Virginia--population 335--the only things that seem to change are the price of cigarettes and the roll call at the prison. Time has dried up like the rain, but two sisters, Aimee and Crystal Lemley, have set out to become prophets at Glorybound Holiness Tabernacle, the basement church where their father Cord Lemley was preacher. For ten years, the sisters have taken care of their mother, Dotte, while holding to vows they took as teenagers after their father skipped town: Crystal has kept silent, and Aimee has kept chaste. When the new teacher from Chicago, Aubrey Falls, attempts to reunite the Lemley family, he looses a flood of memory, misunderstanding, pain and grievance that threatens to swamp them all--unless Aimee and Crystal can see a path to grace.

GLORYBOUND shines with an interior light so fierce and lovely one cannot be anything but utterly astonished.--Gina Ochsner

Jessie van Eerden has written the world a masterpiece.--David James Duncan