Christmas Serenades A NOVEL OF TRADITIONS WITH THE FAMILIES OF CADES COVE

Twelve Chapters. Over a hundred years of memories.

"It's our way of remembering who we are."

Christmas Eve 1925 – Cades Cove, Tennessee, is alive with the sounds of cowbells, rifles, firecrackers, and love. A young couple courts under the unique Appalachian tradition of serenading, growing closer as the season unfolds. Aunt Becky Cable regales the community with stories of days gone by, while everyone tries to set aside the looming tension over the national park that threatens to take their land. What will they do if that happens? Where is their place in this new world?

But that worry is for another day. Tonight, after a Christmas tree decorating party and a school Christmas program, they run between houses, sing carols, and make memories that will last a lifetime. In the morning, they'll rise with the mountain mist, prepare for church, and go visiting on Christmas Day.

Join us in our beautiful valley for a very special Christmas Serenades - to remember where we came from, to hold on to our way of life—if only for tonight—while the glory and shadow of America's newest national park grows ever closer.

Let us all belong to where the mountains sing. For tonight. Forever.

Catherine Astl holds a Master's Degree in English - Literature and Curriculum from Southern New Hampshire University, a Bachelor's in English-American Literature from University of South Florida, and is a graduate of the International Summer Schools Shakespeare and Literature program at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. She also holds an Associate of Science degree in Legal Assisting and worked as a civil litigation trial paralegal for 27 years before switching to her current position teaching English Literature.

Catherine lives in Wesley Chapel, Florida, where she spends time with family and friends, reads, writes, travels, and scours bookshops to add to her personal library of 2000+ books which is always expanding.
After writing a trade magazine column, two non-fiction books and two novels, all of which received much acclaim in the academic and literary fields, Catherine began focusing on the stories of the people who lived in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park before it was a park.

"Oliver's Crossing - A Novel of Cades Cove", was released in 2020, immediately going to the publisher's best seller list. Next came other bestsellers: "Gatlin's Gateway - A Novel of Gatlinburg", "Mountain Mulekick - A Novel of Moonshine in Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats", "Home of the Soul-A Novel of the Walker Sisters of Little Greenbrier Cove", and "Black Bill-A Novel of Walker Valley and Tremont in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park".

Catherine is hard at work on her next Smoky Mountain historical novel.