JP Brand Books

Signed Author Copy of BJ’s debut novella. A Southern Gothic tale of inheritance, hunger, and the land that remembers Dell Cade always knew that Blackjaw Ridge wasn’t just land. It breathed. It watched. It waited. To most, the Ridge looks like any other stretch of Missouri woods—scrub oak and hickory, hollers that swallow sound, and fog that rolls in thick as grief. But Dell was raised at the edge of that timberline by her grandmother, Granny Mae, a woman stitched together with superstitions and secrets. Granny Mae taught her the old ways—how to listen with bone instead of ear, how to plant for peace and burn for protection, how to bargain with the things that don’t speak but still answer. And how to never, ever cross the cedar grove after dark. But Dell was sixteen when curiosity led her into the heart of the Ridge—where an ancient stump carved with a spiraling mark waited like an open mouth. She touched it. And it touched back. Now, years later, Granny Mae is gone. The bees have fled. And something in the Ridge has stirred from its sleep. The land remembers. The land keeps score. And Dell Cade is about to learn what it means to be claimed.