Heather Bell Adams Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Heather Bell Adams
Heather Bell Adams is originally from Hendersonville, North Carolina and lives in Raleigh with husband Geoff, and their son Davis. She volunteers on the Raleigh Review fiction staff and works as a lawyer.

She wrote for her school paper growing up, and would tinker around with short stories. While at Duke University, she was a guest columnist for The Chronicle, she majored in English, and wrote some short stories, however she never did too much with them. Heather applied to a creative writing class however got turned down for it. She went to law school, yet in the back of her mind she knew that she would like to continue honing her creative writing.

With her legal job, she prepares briefs for the court. In this sort of writing, virtually every single sentence has to be supported by a citation to case law or factual evidence. Creative writing offers up the freedom to experiment and play, on the other hand.

Heather gets inspired by reading. It often fuels her desires to write. When she reads a good book, it gets her inspired.

While growing up, she would routinely search the shelves for Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Agatha Christie. Her favorite writers now are Robert Morgan, Ron Rash, Elizabeth Strout, Wiley Cash, Amy Greene, Leesa Cross-Smith, Tayari Jones, Silas House, Terry Roberts, Taylor Brown, and Colum McCann.

Heather has fallen in love with many books. There are many good ones, but one example is when she finished “Bloodroot” by Amy Greene, she clasped the book to her chest, in tears. At the time, she was and still is astonished at the beautiful, moving, and evocative Appalachian novel. She also loves the author, who has provided a lot of encouragement to her.

She prefers only outdoor nature sounds or silence. However, the reality is that she writes while the television is on or when other people are chatting away or the dog is barker or neighbor is landscaping. It is okay, she finds, however, silence is nice at times as well.

Her novel, “Marantha Road”, is set in Garnet. This town is based on a combination of Hendersonville, her home town, as well as the communities of Zirconia and Tuxedo, where many of her ancestors are from. While stitching together the fictional Garnet, she attempted to combine certain aspects of these places so that readers would get the feel of them even if they have never visited the town.

While writing, Heather talks to herself a bunch. She will try out how different names sound and whether they fit her mental conception of the character. In “The Good Luck Stone”, her agent asked her to change the name of one of her major characters because she felt it was way too similar to another character. Of course she was willing to make this change, however she will confess that it took a whole day of talking to herself to settle on another one. The character went from Patricia “Tish” to Kathleen “Kat”.

“Marantha Road” was selected for Deep South Magazine’s Fall/Winter Reading List and won the gold medal for the Southeast region in the Independent Publisher Book Awards. “The Good Luck Stone” appears on Summer Reading Lists for BuzzFeed, Deep South Magazine, The Big Other, and Writer’s Bone.

Her short fiction has won the Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Award and James Still Fiction Prize. It has appeared in Atticus Review, The Thomas Wolfe Review, Broad River Review, Pembroke Magazine, Gravel, Clapboard House, Pisgah Review, and The Petigru Review, as well as other places.

Heather’s debut novel, called “Marantha Road”, was released in the year 2017, which was published in West Virginia University Press.

“Marantha Road” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2017. After Mark, Sadie’s son, has gone, she does not have too much use for other people, this includes her husband. The last person that she wants to see is Tinley Greene, who arrives and claims that she is pregnant with Mark’s baby.

Sadie knows Tinley has to be lying because Mark got engaged and never would he have betrayed his fiance. So she refuses to help out, and does not tell this to anyone. However in a tiny southern town like Garnet, nothing will stay secret for that long.

Once Sadie begins piecing together just what happened to Mark, she finds that she was wrong about Tinley. And when her husband gets rushed off to the hospital, she has to hurry and undo her mistake before he runs out of time to meet their grandkid.

Readers enjoyed this well-written, fast, and enjoyable debut novel from Heather Bell Adams. This is a novel filled with second chances, heartbreak, and secrets, all of which is expressed through lyrical and beautiful prose. Her two main characters feel like people you know, as they are both attempting to be strong attempting to make their way through life without hurting anybody.

“The Good Luck Stone” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2020. Her desperate choice during World War II changed it all. And now, seventy years later, her secret is unraveling.

Audrey Thorpe, who is ninety years old, is still living in a historic mansion on palm-tree-lined Victory Drive, just determined to hang onto her independence. However her health starts fading, and her family hires a part-time caretaker, named Laurel. The two ladies appear to bond, until Audrey vanishes. Unbeknownst to Laurel, she has been harboring a secret for more than seventy years, since her time spent as a nurse in the South Pacific in World War II.

While the tale moves between the verdant jungles of the war-torn Philippines and the glitter in modern-day Savannah, friendships new and old are being tested. Along the way, Audrey wrestles with one of life’s most heart-wrenching of truths. You are only able to outrun your secrets for so long.

This is a book readers got entirely lost in, adoring both of the time lines and settings. And it is a heartrending tale of sacrifice and friendship.