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 heroin 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.

In this rural town buried deep under redwood needles and mountain fog, a dangerous cast of characters never seems too far away. There's Cowboy, a fast-talking enabler of Lou's petty schemes; and MacLeod, a pock-faced proprietor of an off-the-books wrecking yard who utilizes child labor to disassemble his stolen cars. But everything changes when Don Halbert-a persistent school administrator with a keen eye for trouble-starts advocating for Ben and Maisy's welfare. The outcome will break your heart.

"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, Editor in Chief - Reckon Review