Lightwood - by Steph Post (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

After a stint in prison, Judah Cannon is determined for a fresh start, but everything spirals out of control when a call from the clan's leader sends Judah back into a world of thievery, brutality and betrayal.

Judah Cannon - middle son of the notorious Cannon crime-family clan - returns to his rural hometown of Silas, Florida after a stint in prison. He is determined to move forward and live it clean with his childhood best friend and newly discovered love, Ramey Barrow. Hope is on the horizon and a new chapter in Judah's troubled life looks ready to begin.

But everything soon spirals out of control when a phone call from Sherwood - the family's unflinching and uncompromising patriarch - pulls Judah back in, ensnaring both he and Ramey in a complicated web of thievery, brutality and betrayal. Pressured by the unrelenting bonds of blood ties, Judah struggles to do the right thing in a world full of wrongs.

Review Quotes

"Steph Post's prose is lyrical and evocative. Her depiction of hardscrabble life in rural Florida is so effective, you'll wanna lock the doors and crank up the AC. But where Lightwood truly excels is in illuminating the ties that bind - and stretching them well beyond their breaking point."
- Chris Holm, award-winning author of The Killing Kind

"Brilliant... Lightwood solidifies Steph Post as the official voice of working class literature in Florida, akin to what Daniel Woodrell has done for Missouri, or Ron Rash for the Carolinas."
- Brian Panowich, bestselling author of Bull Mountain

"Post paints a large, vivid cast... Post's Florida is rather farther north than the world of Carl Hiaasen's fiction, but they share the dark comedy, intricate plotting and strong sense of paltry sin and mordant evil. Readers who like Hiaasen should find Lightwood well to their taste."
- Wilmington Star-News

"Grabs the attention and offers up some memorable lines. (Post) proves that even a former prison inmate can rise up to be a strange, yet believable hero."
- Suspense Magazine

"With spot-on characterizations and dialogue, Post explores the strength of family, religion, and vengeance in an absorbing literary mystery."
- Booklist

"(A) gritty, propulsive crime novel... Lightwood keeps up a headlong pace as the Cannons, the Scorpions, Sister Tulah and other forces clash brutally all around Judah and Ramey. You might not want to visit Silas in real life, but it makes a fine setting for this twisted and compelling tale."
- Tampa Bay Times

"Not only a badass modern love story, Lightwood is engaging and unpredictable...the best of the southern crime and southern gothic, and rises above the genre."
- Atticus Review

About the Author

Steph Post graduated from Davidson College as a recipient of the Patricia Cornwell Scholarship for creative writing and a winner of the Vereen Bell writing award for fiction. She holds a Master's degree in Graduate Liberal Studies from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Her work has most recently appeared in Garden & Gun, Nonbinary Review, Saw Palm, Black Lily and the anthology Stephen King's Contemporary Classics. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, a Rhysling Award and was a semi-finalist for The Big Moose Prize. She lives in Florida with her husband, three dogs and way too many chickens.