Highland Books is pleased to host a free event with author Terry Roberts as he discusses his new novel, The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, in conversation with Wayne Caldwell. The event will take place at the Mary C. Jenkins Community Center, 221 Mills Avenue, Brevard, on Tuesday, January 28th at 6:30pm.
From Asheville author Terry Roberts comes the thrilling third installment of The Stephen Robbins Chronicles, as fan-favorite Robbins confronts the dangerous contrast between appearance and reality at the exclusive Grove Park Inn in 1920s Asheville.
“If Hercule Poirot had been born in Appalachia instead of in Belgium, he would be Stephen Robbins.” —Daniel Wallace, author of Big Fish and This Isn’t Going to End Well
Terry Roberts is the author of six celebrated novels: A Short Time to Stay Here (winner of the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Fiction and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); That Bright Land (winner of the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award, the James Still Award for Writing About the Appalachian South and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival (Finalist for the 2019 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); My Mistress’ Eyes are Raven Black (Finalist for the 2022 Best Paperback Original Novel by the International Thriller Writers Organization); and most recently, The Sky Club (Finalist for the 2023 Thomas Wolfe Literary Award).
Roberts is a lifelong teacher and educational reformer as well as an award-winning novelist. He is a native of the mountains of Western North Carolina. His ancestors include six generations of mountain farmers, as well as the bootleggers and preachers who appear in his novels. He was raised close by his grandmother, Belva Anderson Roberts, who was born in 1888 and passed to him the magic of the past along with the grit and humor of mountain storytelling. Roberts is the Director of the National Paideia Center and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, Lynn.
Wayne Caldwell is the author of the novels Cataloochee (2007) and Requiem by Fire (2010) and the poetry collections Woodsmoke (2021) and River Road (released October 15, 2024). He has won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award from the Western North Carolina Historical Association, and the James Still Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He lives with his wife, Mary, just west of Asheville, on land that has been in her family since 1831. In his spare time, he works up firewood.
