The Hum and the Shiver by Alex Bledsoe; The Tufa Novels, Book 1; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Emily Janice Card and Stefan Rudnicki

In this valley songs live … and kill.

No one knows where the Tufa came from or how they ended up in the mountains of east Tennessee. When the first Europeans came to the Smoky Mountains, the Tufa were already there. Dark-haired and enigmatic, they live quietly in the hills and valleys of Cloud County, their origins lost to history. But there are clues in their music, hidden in the songs they have passed down for generations.

Private Bronwyn Hyatt, a true daughter of the Tufa, has returned from Iraq, wounded in body and spirit, but her troubles are far from over. Cryptic omens warn of impending tragedy, while a restless “haint” has followed her home from the war. Worse yet, Bronwyn has lost touch with herself and with the music that was once a part of her life. With death stalking her family, will she ever again join in the song of her people and let it lift her onto the night winds?

“Bledsoe turns standard urban fantasy tropes on their head by reimagining modern elves as a tiny, isolated ethnic group unsure of their own origins…The slowly unfolding mystery of the Tufa is a fascinating and absorbing masterpiece of world-building.” —Publishers Weekly

“This powerful, character-driven drama, set forth in superbly lucid prose, occurs against an utterly convincing backdrop and owns complications enough to keep everybody compulsively turning the pages. A sheer delight.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Alex Bledsoe grew up in west Tennessee, an hour north of Graceland. He’s been a reporter, editor, photographer, and door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman. He has published more than fifty short stories on topics as diverse as big-game hunters, mermaids, modern witches, Victorian gentlemen, and country musicians. He has two sons and lives in Wisconsin.