Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | If Ever I Return | 1990 | Sharyn McCrumb | N/A |
| 2 | If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O | 1990 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 3 | The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter | 1992 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 4 | She Walks These Hills | 1994 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 5 | The Rosewood Casket | 1996 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 6 | The Ballad of Frankie Silver | 1997 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 7 | The Songcatcher | 2001 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 8 | Ghost Riders | 2003 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 9 | The Devil Amongst the Lawyers | 2010 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 10 | The Ballad of Tom Dooley | 2011 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 11 | King’s Mountain | 2013 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 12 | Nora Bonesteel’s Christmas Past | 2014 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 13 | Prayers the Devil Answers | 2016 | Sharyn McCrumb | Buy |
| 14 | The Unquiet Grave | 2017 | Sharyn McCrumb | N/A |
The Ballad series is Sharyn McCrumb’s most acclaimed body of work. Spanning fourteen books from 1990 to 2017, the series is set in the fictional Hamelin, Tennessee, and the surrounding Appalachian mountains. Each book weaves together past and present, often building a mystery around a real historical event or folk tradition from the region.
The series begins with If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, which introduces the town and its residents against the backdrop of a Vietnam veteran’s homecoming. Later entries like The Ballad of Frankie Silver and The Ballad of Tom Dooley retell famous Appalachian murder cases. Nora Bonesteel, a mountain woman with second sight, recurs throughout the series as a connecting thread. McCrumb’s prose captures the rhythms of mountain speech and the weight of history that hangs over the landscape.