Hard Mountain Clay

Siblings Ben and Maisy find they have no one to turn to after witnessing a gruesome hit-and-run that shatters their innocence. Not their mother, a poor waitress with a spiraling drug addiction—and certainly not her new boyfriend, a brutal, meth-smoking tow-truck driver named Lou Holt. When Lou's cover-up slowly turns their backyard into a makeshift cemetery, they devise plans to escape their chaotic home in the Santa Cruz Mountains, only to see their lives sink to even darker depths.

Advance Praise

"Resonant and harrowing, Hard Mountain Clay is a haunting and visceral story of survival, betrayal, and the power of hope. Like a Californian William Gay, Blackwell writes with compassion and honesty about the worst, and the best, of human nature taking us deep into the dark to see glimmers of beauty. Raw, wrenching, and brave, Hard Mountain Clay will change you."
—Meagan Lucas, author - Songbirds and Stray Dogs