"Refuge is a wonderful story about the need to find one's place in the world - and the price paid to remain there. With her narrative gift and keen ear for Appalachian speech, Dot Jackson gives her readers a beautifully rendered portrait of a lost time and place."
--Ron Rash, author of One Foot in Eden and Saints at the River

"What a glorious event is the publication of this beautiful novel by Dot Jackson, one of the most gifted souls who ever breathed the sweet air of Appalachia. In Refuge she confirms the verity that the love we give, whether to place, people or other creatures, is all the shelter we need."
--Jerry Bledsoe, author of Bitter Blood and Before He Wakes

"Refuge is an intensely readable novel of the complexity of family ties - the struggle of a strong woman through the odyssey back to her roots. Dot Jackson is a true Southern voice, a master storyteller and an Appalachian treasure. Her many fans will love this book."
--Dori Sanders, author of Clover and Her Own Place

Late one night in the spring of 1929, a young Charleston society matron named Mary Seneca Steele goes to bed while considering what to wear for her suicide. Now, suddenly seized by an other worldly fiddle tune playing in her head, she arises, steals her children and her husband’s new Auburn Phaeton, and sets out on a journey of enlightenment, which begins with learning to drive.

Before she makes this impetuous exit from the proper South, Mary Sen’s worst transgression has been going out in public without her hat. But there will be no returning to her old life once she abandons it.

At the end of the long, bumpy road she travels lies a river-washed mountain cove. Its birch forest shimmers in peculiar light, ethereal and haunting in its welcome. Here, Mary Sen finds a family she’s never known she had, living and dead. In its bosom, she will discover her enigmatic cousin, Ben Aaron Steele, and embark on a disquieting love affair.

The scandal begets a string of tragedies, including murder, some tough and urgent maturing, and a surprising salvation, all in the embrace of a big, old unpainted house. Full of songs and whispers, it seems to cling to its loved ones, long after their remains lie silent in the birch grove up the hill.