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Gather Her Round, by Alex Bledsoe, Tor Books, 2017, $27.99, hc.
Every time Alex Bledsoe publishes a new Tufa book I think to myself, okay, this one's the best. So at the moment my favorite of them is Gather Her Round. And what's not to love? Beautiful prose, hillbilly faerie (Bledsoe calls them Tufa) in the Appalachian Mountains, music that's integral to the story, and a sense of wonder that never quits, whispering merrily along - even in the mundane scenes - like an underground river.
Now oddly enough, the first touchstone that came to mind as I started the book was Joe R. Lansdale's The Boar, even though Lansdale's book and Gather Her Round are so dissimilar. YA and adult novel. East Texas and...