Angel Garcia Jones vanished into the deep woods of Yonah, North Carolina, leaving a trail of murders—and a lingering, spectral presence.
Newcomers Cal and Joy McAlister, seeking to rebuild their lives, find themselves drawn into the mountain’s shadows. Cal, a retired trader and recovering alcoholic, wrestles with restlessness; Joy, a potter and former physical therapist, seeks reinvention. Their handyman, Doyle Smathers, tends to Ainsley Morse, a young woman meditating in solitude to escape her own demons.
As secrets surface and past crimes echo through the mountains, these lives collide in a haunting tale of grief, ghosts, and the darkness that refuses to die.

Praise for Appalachian Book of the Dead

“Appalachian Book of the Dead is a novel whose excellence defies easy categorization. To call it a metaphysical thriller conveys only a part of the novel’s strengths, for the novel’s characters are as complex and vividly realized as we’d expect in more character-driven fiction. Dale Neal’s novel, once begun, will be hard for any reader to put down.”

—Ron Rash, author of Serena and Under the Waterfall

“I was properly scared throughout this book, and properly delighted. It begins with a double murder and a disappearance, and then the Tibetan Book of the Dead guides us through a landscape of human miscalculations. It had me enthralled from page one.”

—Joan Silber, author of Improvement and Secrets of Happiness

“It is time for readers everywhere to acknowledge what we in Western North Carolina already know: Dale Neal is simply one of the most natural storytellers writing novels today. In his newest, Appalachian Book of the Dead, he smoothly, vividly unfolds the dramas in the lives of characters who hope to reinvent themselves, to reckon with the ghosts of their former lives, to move, at last, through the in-between condition in order to know how to truly be themselves. At each turn in the tense and engaging plot, the reader shares in the characters’ surprising discoveries; in each dimension of their complex tragedies, lively comedy is given its due. Neal has woven genuine wisdom into the rich thematic elements here that effectively, unselfconsciously echo the instructions in The Tibetan Book of the Dead and the meditations of the Stoic, Marcus Aurelius. Readers who appreciate attentive and accurate evocations of the natural world and of rural life, will find themselves compelled to tell others about the memorable fictional community of Yonah, North Carolina.”

—Kevin McIlvoy, author of At the Gate of All Wonder and One Kind Favor

“Appalachian Book of the Dead is a hypnotic, slow-burning literary thriller that pulses with atmosphere and psychological depth. Dale Neal crafts an immersive tale set in the haunted hills of Yonah, North Carolina, where past violence echoes through the trees and the ghost of a killer lingers in both legend and memory. The result is a novel that reads like Deliverance met The Secret History at a backwoods crossroads—introspective, eerie, and wholly engrossing. The story is a literary triumph. It’s haunting, soulful, and unforgettable. It’s for readers who crave mood, meaning, and mystery wrapped in sentences that crackle with insight. Highly recommended for fans of Southern Gothic, psychological thrillers, and stories that ask what it truly means to survive."

—Ileana Munoz Renfroe, author of Rosa the Cuban Psychic Mysteries