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    The Ballad of Frankie Silver
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    The Ballad of Frankie Silver
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    The Ballad of Frankie Silver
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Ballad of Frankie Silver

    Written by Sharyn McCrumb

    Narrated by Barbara Rosenblat

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Award-winning, New York Times best-selling novelist Sharyn McCrumb crafts absorbing, lyrical tales featuring the rich culture and lore of Appalachia. In the compelling The Ballad of Frankie Silver, she deftly weaves past and present with legend and truth to create a suspenseful portrait of tragic death. As a convicted killer awaits execution in Tennessee, Sheriff Spencer Arrowood wonders if he arrested the right man years ago. Searching for answers, he discovers shocking parallels with a case more than a century old—the controversial hanging of a 19-year-old North Carolina woman. Suddenly he finds himself in a frantic struggle to stop history from repeating itself. Colorful Appalachian characters step from the pages with Sharyn McCrumb’s masterful storytelling and Barbara Rosenblat and Jeff Woodman’s dramatic dual narration. You can learn more about the author as she speaks in an exclusive interview recorded in our Recorded Books’ studios. For other fascinating Appalachian stories, try: If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O and She Walks These Hills.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books Audio
    Release dateJan 1, 1998
    ISBN9781449802561
    Unavailable
    The Ballad of Frankie Silver
    Author

    Sharyn McCrumb

    Sharyn McCrumb is an award-winning Southern writer, best known for her Appalachian “Ballad” novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Ballad of Tom Dooley and The Ballad of Frankie Silver. Ghost Riders won the Wilma Dykeman Award for Literature from the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Audie Award for Best Recorded Book. Named a Virginia Woman of History by the Library of Virginia and a Woman of the Arts by the Daughters of the American Revolution, McCrumb was awarded a merit award by the West Virginia Library Association in 2017 and the Mary Hobson Prize for Arts & Letters in 2014. Her books have been named New York Times and Los Angeles Times Notable Books.  

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    Reviews for The Ballad of Frankie Silver

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this story, which blended the true story of Frankie Silver with a fictional present day mystery. The narration was very good, too.
    • 5/5
      It McCrumb. It's fun.If you have trouble reading two books at the same time, or following two conversations - don't try McCrumb's books.This one is typical - we are following the details of an alleged murder in 1833 - where she killed her husband with an arsenic laced donut - but witnesses saw her finish the donut herself.- so how could she have killed him with it?The other murder is in modern times, and also involves arsenic.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this half fiction and half non-fiction story of life in the North Carolina and Tennessee mountains. The story alternates between the 1830's and 1990's. Sheriff Spencer Arrowood is recuperating from a wound. While recuperating, Spencer contemplates his first murder case and the arrest and trial of Frankie Silver. The underlying theme is the blood oath among the mountain community that deters punishing the guilty individuals. Sometimes I found the Southern genealogy to be tedious and cumbersome to the story. McCrumb revels in providing two or more story lines in her Ballad series, and many times this format is tiresome and confusing. I felt this story is well written and approaches the uncertainty of Spencer and other characters.
    • 5/5
      Frankie Silver was a real person,the first woman hanged in the state of North Carolina, on July 12, 1833. Hers was a tragic story - 18 years old when brought to trial for the murder of her husband, mother of an infant daughter.Convicted in a two-day trial, she was not allowed by law to testify in her own behalf. Her appeals denied by the state supreme court, a grass-roots effort in the community arose to secure a pardon ,but it was not to be. As she stood on the gallows, about to speak, her own father shut her down with the cry, "Die with it in you, Frankie!"Modern-day Sheriff Spencer Arrowood receives notice that, as sheriff of the home county, he is to witness the execution of a man he himself had put on death row some twenty years ago. Sure of himself as a young deputy, he is much less so as a mature sheriff, and his uncertainties lead him to the case of the lamented Mrs. Silver. What is the connection between two cases 160 years apart? Ms. McCrumb deftly weaves both stories together so that the great disparities between truth and justice stand in stark contrast. Read this book.
    • 4/5
      Sharyn McCrumb weaves together a modern crime story with the legend of Frankie Silver, an 1830s North Carolina mountain teenager who was convicted and executed for the murder of her husband. The plot has a lot of similarities to Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time. While recuperating from a serious injury, Spencer Arrowood, sheriff of Wake County, Tennessee, becomes obsessed with the legend of Frankie Silver. He has just received an invitation to witness Tennessee's first execution in 30 years as the representative of the condemned prisoner's home county. Twenty years earlier, Arrowood was convinced of Fate Harkryder's guilt, but now something about the case is making him uneasy. The two cases -- Frankie's and Fate's -- become connected in Arrowood's mind.Sharyn McCrumb did her homework on the Frankie Silver legend. I felt like I was there in 1830s Morganton, North Carolina, watching the events unfold. Fate Harkryder's story was also well told, but it didn't have the same intensity as Frankie's story. I think it's because I was aware that McCrumb could choose Fate Harkryder's outcome, but Frankie Silver's fate was inevitable. It had already been written by history.This isn't a typical mystery/crime novel. It has some characteristics of a legal thriller, but it isn't typical for that genre, either. It tackles some weighty issues such as the death penalty and "equal justice under law" as applied to poor white Appalachians. Readers who normally do not read crime or mystery novels might want to give this one a try.
    • 4/5
      Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad series is more than a mystery series. It is compelling and literate writing that leaves the reader feeling strangely at peace when a book is finished. This book is the last in the Ballad series, and I'm not sure why this wonderful series ends here, but this novel is a wonderful story. It combines the past and present in a very original way. Ms. McCrumb has done her homework on the story of Frankie Silver. She was a young mountain mother who was convicted and hanged for her husband's murder and the dismemberment of his body. This true story occurred in 1832 and 1833 when Frankie was actually hanged. Ms. McCrumb blends this story with an early case of Spencer Arrowood's which Spencer feels he has to reexamine when he is at home recovering from a bullet wound. How can a crime in 1833 be connected to one in the late 80's. Spencer figures out why he feels that he wants to solve both crimes. McCrumb shifts back and forth between the two storylines, and it's a bit like a dream as the story carries you along. A great end to a great series.
    • 5/5
      WNC setting-set in the past and the present. Main character is sheriff Spencer Arrowood. Wonderful!
    • 3/5
      Odd book--part of Sharyn's other folklore series. Interesting. Based upon truth.
    • 4/5
      Very good book that goes back and forth between 1830s and 1998.