North Carolina writer and poet laureate emeritus, Fred Chappell, says of novelist Rose Senehi's seventh novel, set in Chimney Rock, NC: "...maybe it is inevitable that a story set in the shadows of one of the most famous crags in America would be a cliffhanger. And Dancing on Rocks is certainly that. But it is also a telling study of individuals, families and local history."
Rob Neufeld, Book Reviewer for the Asheville Citizen-Times wrote: “Few locally set novels involve their settings as faithfully as Dancing on Rocks captures various aspects of Chimney Rock. Senehi does this by contrasting the history and the contemporary reality of the up-and-down tourist town. The dialogue is natural; the theme, 'we will survive.' Deftly, Senehi folds in mystery, romance, environmentalism, and oh!—a great character in the person of the heroine's spunky mom.”
Dancing on Rocks is the fourth “stand alone” book in Senehi's Blue Ridge series. Her previous novel, Render Unto the Valley, was awarded a 2012 IPPY Gold Medal as the Best Fiction—Southeast and selected as a SIBA OKRA PICK. In the Shadows of Chimney Rock was nominated for the 2009 SIBA Book Award. Senehi moved from Upstate New York in 1996 to Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, where she wrote Pelican Watch, Windfall, and Shadows in the Grass. For Dancing on Rocks, she spent two years writing and researching the history of the North Carolina village of Chimney Rock so she could weave historically accurate details into this portrait of the iconic mountain community where she now lives.
At the next Catawba College Community Forum, author Rose Senehi will speak about the four "stand alone" novels in her Blue Ridge Series. Senehi folds into her contemporary fiction, the local lore and history of the Hickory Nut Gorge, Chimney Rock, Lake Lure and the Green River Valley of Western North Carolina. Her plots also portray many of the actual heroic efforts of the area's land conservancies to preserve the beauty, flora and fauna of the southern Blue Ridge.
Come to the first Catawba College Community Forum of the 2014-15 season on Tuesday, September 16, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. in Tom Smith Auditorium of Ralph W. Ketner Hall for an evening with this noted local author.
