krista raye

Like its biblical namesake, the road into the Depression era, mountain community of Damascus, Georgia holds the same mythical powers of redemption and repentance. Within its rocky pathways lies the secret that binds a preacher’s daughter, the son of a cotton baron, and a black drifter to a lynching fifty years earlier.

Jackson Tate makes his pilgrimage to Damascus out of greed rather than soul searching. On a mission to acquire land for his family’s booming cotton mill business, he doesn’t anticipate his only stumbling block to be in mild mannered, Luke Nations, the pastor of a small church. Nor does he take too kindly when Luke’s daughter, Sarah, cools his advances. But when a flash of blinding light leaves him a contemporary Saul, broken and bruised on the road to Damascus, the world Jackson knew is forever changed.

Amid the lush landscape of the mountains, Jackson is reborn not only through salvation at the very church he wanted take, but through the kindness of the Nations family who shelter and care for him during his recovery. It isn’t long before the reformed Jackson wins Sarah’s heart. When he brings her out of the mountains and back to his home in the big city, their newlywed life is forever changed when they befriend, John Christian, an elderly black drifter.

When John is falsely accused of murdering of a young, white woman, Jackson and Sarah hold John’s fate in their hands. Do they falsify a deposition claiming John wasn’t with them the night of the murder, or do they stand up to Jackson’s prejudiced family and execute a daring prison break along a backwoods road, embarking on a harsh trek to freedom through the rugged North Georgia mountains with Klansmen and hired mercenaries on their heels. Ultimately, the answer lies somewhere on the road to Damascus.