In the Fullness of Time - by Terry Roberts

About the Book

With his customary verve and insight, Terry Roberts' latest novel is an evocative portrait of humankind's capacity for courage, love, and hope as well as folly, as reluctant sheriff Clinton Salter works to unravel the mystery of a string of arsons, grave robberies, and murders plaguing Madison County, all while navigating difficult family relationships and the hope of second love.

Book Synopsis

With his customary verve and insight, Terry Roberts' latest novel is an evocative portrait of humankind's capacity for courage, love, and hope as well as folly, and another love ballad to his region of North Carolina.

Clinton Salter is the sheriff who never wanted to be sheriff. A World War II veteran and widower, he is elected due to the political machinations of his brother. His new territory is the fabled Madison County, North Carolina--a place of the steepest mountain ridges and most isolated coves and valleys. A place where the seasons matter more than the calendar and the past is as real as the present.

When he first takes office, he hopes only to deal with the drunk and disorderly and stolen tractors, but matters quickly accelerate into arson, grave robbing, and murder, and he begins to suspect his own brother's motives. He finds solace in the friendship of Catherine Metcalf, a lonely high school principal whose husband has been in a coma and dying for years. Their only refuge is Clinton's farm high in the mountains, where they can retreat from the world. As they seek to create a new life for themselves and the county, political violence and family cruelty threaten to shatter their visions.

Review Quotes

"In the beautiful mountains of North Carolina, in the county that has given us the most distinguished fiddlers, Terry Roberts sets a story of murder, graft, political corruption, and families with long memories and secrets. In the Fullness of Time is a novel of betrayal, where crime is close to home, but also of courage, integrity, and long-delayed love, in prose from the place where the music was born." --Robert Morgan, author of Gap Creek and Chasing the North Star

"Terry Roberts's Madison County offers a welcome refuge even in the midst of seemingly inescapable violence. As Clinton and Catherine struggle to start anew, they wrestle beneath the weight of family and the legacy of community. A gorgeous journey from start to finish, this heartrending and insightful novel is shot through with veins of light and wisdom." --Heather Bell Adams, author of Maranatha Road and Starring Marilyn Monroe as Herself

"In Terry Roberts' excellent new novel, he describes the topography of western North Carolina with the attentiveness of a skilled landscape painter, but Roberts is equally attentive to the terrain of the human heart. His characters are not one-dimensional 'types.' Instead, they embody the complexities and contradictions of fully realized humans, most of all Clinton Salter, a good man torn between loyalty to the law and loyalty to family. In the Fullness of Time is yet another reminder of why Terry Roberts is one of our very finest novelists." --Ron Rash, New York Times bestselling author of Serena, The Cove, and The Caretaker

"You are holding a tale of a Southern mountain sheriff. But beware: Roberts could have made this a stereotype fest, but instead tells a story that celebrates truth, steadfastness, and justice. With a dog or two thrown in for local color. This is a book you need during these fraught times." --Wayne Caldwell, author of Cataloochee and The Shadow Family

"Terry Roberts's story had me from page one, drawing me into the town of Marshall, NC, and the lives of the characters there. Like his other novels, In the Fullness of Time isn't so much a mystery as a series of enigmas about the longstanding insecurities that spark the most inscrutable human behaviors. Deft, engrossing, and compassionate, the story delves deeply into the ways a place can shape complicated motivations. Roberts's mountain community is poised between the past and the future, between old recriminations and the desire for change. It's about the long arc of families and history, a paean to the intricate relationships between people, time, and place. I loved it!" --Julia Franks, author of Over the Plain Houses and The Say So

"Terry Roberts is one of those authors who, from the opening page, takes you by the hand and pulls you into the story in a most effortless and wonderful way. In his spell-binding new novel, In the Fullness of Time, Roberts brings 1960s Madison County, North Carolina, to life with such vivid detail, such a rich, sensory depiction you are there, sitting alongside Sheriff Clinton Salter as, with common sense and notable decency, he seeks to right a slew of wrongs so generationally accepted as to be woven into the very fabric of the community. Through it all is a tender love story of two good people, of family estranged and moving toward wholeness, of a community healed. Terry Roberts is an exceptional writer and, with In the Fullness of Time, a master storyteller at the height of his craft." --Cathy Rigg, author of That Which Binds Us

"In Terry Roberts' sixth novel, In the Fullness of Time, the big picture is about the mysteries of Time--of what was, is, and will be. The core of this tasty apple--the story itself--delivers barn burnings, grave robberies, murder, 'banjos and buttermilk, ' Republicans, Democrats, family stain, family love, and romance. And that's just the core. Thundering through the mountains of fabled Madison County, North Carolina, this novel is a train that's destined to be a lasting tribute to a place that demonstrates how people and land are, in so many ways, the same. All aboard!" --Clyde Edgerton, author of Walking Across Egypt and The Bible Salesman

About the Author

Terry Roberts is the author of five celebrated novels: A Short Time to Stay Here (winner of the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Fiction and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); That Bright Land (winner of the Thomas Wolfe Literary Award, the James Still Award for Writing About the Appalachian South and the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); The Holy Ghost Speakeasy and Revival (Finalist for the 2019 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction); My Mistress' Eyes are Raven Black (Finalist for the 2022 Best Paperback Original Novel by the International Thriller Writers Organization); The Sky Club; and most recently, The Devil Hath a Pleasing Shape, releasing in October 2024.

Roberts is a lifelong teacher and educational reformer as well as an award-winning novelist. He is a native of the mountains of Western North Carolina--born and bred. His ancestors include six generations of mountain farmers, as well as the bootleggers and preachers who appear in his novels. He was raised close by his grandmother, Belva Anderson Roberts, who was born in 1888 and passed to him the magic of the past along with the grit and humor of mountain story telling.

Roberts is the Director of the National Paideia Center and lives in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife, Lynn.