In The Beginning were The Brothers Brass. In The End there is no end to what one wounded girl's heart will give. And no end to what one brother will give for the other.
The Brothers Brass. Two young grassroots singers (with echoes of Nickel Creek and The Every Brothers) raised in Savannah by the sea, together, these boys' voices chime like heavenly bells. The oldest brother, Kestrel, falls in love with a wild little thing who hides up in the trees—a bit of a girl named Bettilia. An abused girl raised by a flesh and blood devil on a haunted mountain called Riddle Top.
Soon all the Family Brass falls for Bettilia. She touches Kestrel, she touches everyone. And they touch sweet Bettilia, forever. Then comes that fateful day when, deep in his own heart, Kestrel says I do to his own devil, within and without.
The Kestrel Waters is an eerie, heroic, and beautiful story of human love, like none you’ve ever known. An epic fable of an epic family whose hearts are comic, profane, and profoundly true.
”I was haunted throughout...a mesmerizing...extraordinary work of the imagination." ~ William Peter Blatty (author of The Exorcist)
”Mellifluous, lyrical...with a darkness that creeps like kuzu." ~ Kirkus Reviews
”Captures the tragedy of romantic and familial love better than any story I have ever read." ~ Janeiro Bento
”One of the South’s wildest new voices..." ~ The Oxford American Magazine
”Thornhorn, where the hell have you been?" ~ William Peter Blatty
"A story of bluegrass mythology and race relations ... Mellifluous, Lyrical ... with a darkness that creeps like kudzu."
"Here's what you should know about Randy Thornhorn. He dives deep as a writer and creates a lyrical wonderland as a storyteller. He has the talent to blend a kind of mystical back drop with gritty southern realism that I didn't think was possible ... This is a love story at its core, and the reader is taken there experiencing the passion, appetites and misfortune that such a "nail to the head" provides the oldest brother, Kestrel. It's a story of family ties and sacrifices that are at once beautiful and tragic. If I had to pick one thing that sets this author apart from other southern storytellers it would be the masterful way he sprinkles backwoods dialect into meaningful dialogue. You get the sense that you're learning a long lost language, one that is simple and alluring."
"I took most of the day off to read The Kestrel Waters after which I've come to believe that it is I who should be asking Thornhorn for quotes. I was haunted throughout by a sense of mystery and otherness, it's mesmerizing, wonderfully written, an extraordinary work ... Thornhorn, where the hell have you been?"
