WHIPPOORWILL SING by KHRISTEENA LUTE

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Whippoorwill Sing by Khristeena Lute is a tour de force searing with emotional resonance that will draw you in with its lyrically precise, achingly beautiful prose. Blending heartache and the profound wonder of the human spirit, this southern literary mystery will keep readers eagerly turning the pages. As I read, my heart raced with fear, rage, and anticipation, until I reached the end, and felt I could breathe again.

Lute masterfully weaves the lives of four women across two generations, each mirroring the other’s circumstances. These characters will linger in the reader’s mind long past the end. At the heart of this story is Atlas, who, like her namesake, carries the weight of their collective burdens.

As Atlas discovers her identity and confronts the ghosts of her past, she finds herself ensnared by the generational residue of abuse, corruption, bias, bigotry, and hatred.

“But it’s my family,” I say. ... “I hear all the time, ‘Make your ancestors proud’ and stuff, you know? My ancestors were back there, and they were so full of hate for the people I love most.”

The whippoorwill serves as a powerful symbol of longing, melancholy, spiritual presence, and change. These recurring themes drive the narrative momentum, propelling us forward and offering hope. With the enduring love of the women who came before her, Atlas rises above, forging a path marked by resilience and courage. Whippoorwill Sing is more than a story. It’s a voice for the silenced; it’s a celebration of the unbreakable bonds of womanhood; it’s bravery in the face of corrupted authority; and it’s a testament to the transformative power of those who dare to end cycles of harm and create legacies of love.

--Chrissy Hicks, author of Inheritance of Lies (CamCat Books 2026)

Khristeena Lute’s novel Whippoorwill Sing skillfully unravels a decades long spiderweb of connections in this beautifully written Appalachian Gothic novel. It uncovers the pieces of past lives and a history of the mountains as they appear in the sculptures, quilts, and paintings that Atlas finds for the museum’s art exhibit, which is a central theme of the story. The author creatively turns things upside down, returning to other generations who lived in the same area, dealt with the same issues, and worked at the same place as Atlas now works, though in the past it was a sanatorium.

The heart of the story is the resilience of Atlas, who labors under the weight of several generations of abuse, violence, neglect, bigotry, and heartbreak. Though carrying all of this on her shoulders, the story reveals the strong women who came before her and how they helped her withstand the power of historical and mythical burdens she inherited. They have survived and thrived under the most difficult circumstances, have found a way forward, and protected her from evil when it appeared. Atlas discovers her true identity and her connections to these women from her past who burn bright in her mind and her imagination. She learns to savor, to feel within, to picture remembrances of sweet and better times and the remains of lives lived there, while experiencing visions and ghosts, and the mystical atmosphere of the mountains murmuring from the past and foretelling the future.

The people, places, abuse, hardships, terrors, and dark moments filled with ghosts and whispering voices spring from the page as does the settling of many debts. Lute is a master at bringing the shadows of the past to life in a whirlwind of mystery that keeps the reader engaged to the very last word.

--Sharon Mabry, author of The Postmaster’s Daughter (Thorncraft Publishing 2023) and The Blue Box and Memories that Live in the Bones (Thorncraft Publishing 2024)

“Below us, we can see miles and miles of mountains, blanketed above by a night sky uninterrupted by city lights. Shades of blue and purple swirl with thousands of white stars. . .I walk over to a large rock near the edge of the lookout and sit down, leaning back on my hands. Jake joins with no further complaints. Somewhere in the surrounding woods, I hear the sound of the whippoorwills chanting: whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will.”