Life on a Mountain

Capturing the serenity of a wooded Smoky Mountain setting, home to a close-knit community grounded in native cultural traditions and long-standing friendships, Jacobs offers unexpected, folksy dimensions in a hard to peg genre of suspense and romance when retired college professor meets local mountain folks.

Bella Anderson struggles to wrap her head around the recent destruction of her property by teenagers running drugs across her eighty acres in the Smoky Mountains. All she wants is to establish a routine in the hopes of writing her ever elusive novel. She finds her plans change quickly—just like the switchbacks on the road to her serene cabin more than 2000 feet above the valley community that is the lifeline for folks in these hills. Widowed at a young age, she is surprised by the interest two local men show in her. Will Bella be prepared for the tenuous nature of her connection to the roots of her ancestors through Joe Johnson, the owner of the Valley Store? He is her only link to her family in this isolated community where people take care of each other—except when they don't.

Jacque Jacobs is a southerner by birth, family roots, and upbringing. Mountain storytelling is in her DNA. Her mother's family settled in Knox County, Tennessee, in the 1720s. Her daddy, yes he was always Daddy, was a descendent of the Oliver family who settled in Cades Cove in the Smoky Mountains of East TN. Her adult life is deeply grounded in family, education, and service. A retired professor from Western Carolina University, she's lived and worked on five continents and is grateful for the opportunities to experience other cultures first hand—immersed in the lives of the people she's met.