Jason McCall is a doctor hired by the coal company to earn a year's free internship by coming to work in the coalfields. He meets Lucinda Harmon and falls in love but the gulf is too wide between the two cultures.
Jason McCall, the outsider, soon learns that there is a native wisdom and honesty about the mountain people that one learns to respect and admire, but he is baffled 'by the strictures of the mountain culture, the religious practices, and the Calvinistic beliefs in predetermination.
Jason is drafted into the Korean War, while working in Appalachia and while there determines to become an opthamologist. He does this but also marrries and returns to Appalachia to practice.
He once again meets Lucinda Harmon, now married, and their love becomes a guilt trip for both of them. Their faith in God sustains them and helps them to be faithful to their spouses even though they never forget each other.
Professional Reviews
Dr. Thomas K. McKnight
This second book in Davis' trilogy hits the mark of good plot_ It leaves you wanting more. The excellent character development makes you love some characters and wan to strangle others -- a trait of a good storyteller. But eitehr way, uyou can't help but get involved in this rich love story. Davis has done an excellent job of research , from her realistic descriptions of life in the hills of West Virginia to the accurate names and locations of the streets and places in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The language of Appalachia in Jason's Journey rings true, without being overly sentimental, not an easy task. West Virginia should be proud of its daughter, storyteller, historian --Adda Leah (Addie) Davis.
Dr. Robert J. Higgs
Jason's Journey is every bit a match in quality and maybe more for Lucinda's Mountain, Addie's Davis' first novel about life in McDowell County, West Virginia, around mid-century. Thoroughly realistic, the novel exhibits convincing detail, about life in mountain communities of central Appalachia, marriage and family, courtship and folkways, education, medicine and health, politics. social classes (in Pittsburgh and West Virgini), and religion, especially challenges to belief in the face of inexplicable suffering, and last but by no means least transportation, the effect of the condition of rthe roads upon the plot of teh novel. All of these topics provide a backdrop for teh overarching theme of the novel, a love triangle centered around jason McCall, his wife Janet, and Lucinda Harmon, the main character and title figure of rthe opening novel. Here the emphasis is upon Jason, a doctor from Pittsburgh, and his journey to the heart of Appalachia, which is only one of several he undertakes in the novel, as he makes his way trough mountain cultures, a tour in the army in time of war, and especially a spiritual odyssey into rocky ravines of love in all its forms. Tears of characters are abundant but never false. Davis carefully avoids stereotyping of characters and scenes where writers less skilled might founder and fall in similar settings. This is a page turner full of surprises. Davis shows how Appapachia is like every other place in her handling of human emotions, but different in the rendering of that difference lies the excellence of her craft.
Psychic wiccan Deja Hamilton pulls shapeshifter Lincoln McCabe from the lake, and the two form an alliance against the covetous older brother who wants Lincoln dead.
The Matchmaker:
Angela Calminetti, mother of five, New Age practitioner and gifted psychic and telepath, is proud of her family ties and does everything she can to make sure that all of her younger siblings are as happy in love and marriage
