Winner - First Prize - William Faulkner Literary Award

 

 

Reviewed and “highly recommended” by the American Library Association Round Table


Praised for it’s mystery, drama, honor and romance, Finding Pluck, has been hailed as fresh and imaginative, eloquently written, entertaining, delightfully absorbing and a work that is truly important.It is 1995 in North Carolina and Taylor Hanes is struggling to escape his small-minded dying textile town. He finds his ticket out by being awarded a full-ride gay and lesbian equality scholarship to a state university. Problem is, he isn’t gay. He lied on the application. Abruptly, he is shocked to be faced with hometown intolerance, but worse yet, he awakens the wrath of the long dead scholarship’s benefactor. 

In his new life in college he must still contend with the hauntings, but his new girlfriend, a professed witch, and a group of friends ban together to help him unravel the reasons the spirit is restless. 

The narrative deftly moves between the present and when the benefactor attended college in 1927, the pinnacle of the Jazz age and a period of great change and moral conflict. As the friends dig deeper, the story draws parallels in the lives of the characters. This is a coming-of-age novel unlike any other with an unusual twist.

Comment