Piney Bend Passions
Placeholder description — update later.
Premise
Kestrel Vance, the ridge's most seasoned female guide at fifty-five, has spent decades leading climbers through the treacherous peaks of Laurel Bend, West Virginia, in the heart of the Appalachian Blue Ridge. Haunted by her grandfather's mysterious disappearance from a remote summit in 1974 and the lingering frost of a family feud with the rival Thorne clan, she guards her heart as fiercely as she navigates icy ledges, forever prioritizing the mountain's call over personal ties. When a distress signal crackles through from that very peak—where she once shared a stolen summit passion with a long-lost lover two decades prior—Kestrel mobilizes for a solo rescue, steeling herself against the ghosts of her past. The arrival of Bane Thorne, the legendary climber who's roamed the Rockies since abandoning her in 1995, shatters her solitude; only his cutting-edge gear can secure the stranded hiker, forcing the former flames into a high-stakes ascent laced with clashing routes, buried confessions, and electric proximity on a storm-trapped ledge. As avalanches of old wounds threaten to bury them alongside a shocking discovery tying their grandfathers' legacies, Kestrel and Bane must forge trust amid the thin air or lose the victim, their feud-hardened families, and the second chance at a love that could unite the hollers forever—transforming rivals into anchors in a pulse-pounding tale of redemption, passion, and mountain-born harmony.
Summary
Structural blueprint for Book 15 of the Holler Flame Echoes series.