Barns are burning on farms all around Jubilant Falls, Ohio —but that’s the least of newspaper editor Addison McIntyre’s problems. The daughter of Golgotha College president Dr. Seaford Thorn has come up missing — along with $500,000 from the college’s endowment fund. When Addison’s own daughter Isabella, already suspended from school for assaulting a teacher, attempts suicide , Addison must come to terms with the real meaning of family secrets— her own and others.
Barnburner tackles the legacy of mental illness in a small town, the secrets everyone keeps—and the damages that all of those secrets can do.
“Debra Gaskill's small town Jubilant Falls reads as true as Faulkner's Jefferson, Mississippi. From the first page, Addison makes the reader long for her next crime to solve or mystery to unravel.”
—Douglas Savage, author of the novels The Court Martial of Robert E. Lee (History Book Club main selection)