Combining the luminous tradition of southern fiction with the enigmatic world of the mystical

First prize winner of the William Faulkner Literary Award

Reviewed and "highly recommended" by a round table of the American Library Association

It is 1995 in North Carolina and high-school student Taylor Hanes is struggling to escape his small-minded dying textile town. He finds his ticket out by lying on the application in order to get a full-ride scholarship to a state university. His actions generate unexpected consequences from his family and his hometown, but worse yet, he awakens the wrath of the scholarship’s long dead benefactor.

In his new life in college he must still contend with the hauntings, but his new girlfriend, a professed witch, and a group of friends ban together to help him unravel the reasons the spirit is restless.

The narrative deftly moves between the present and when the benefactor attended college in 1927, the pinnacle of the Jazz Age and a period of great change and moral conflict. As the friends dig deeper, the story draws parallels in the lives of the characters. This is a coming-of-age novel unlike any other with an unusual twist. Praised for its mystery, drama, honor and romance, Finding Pluck has been hailed as fresh and imaginative, eloquently written, entertaining, delightfully absorbing, and with something truly important to say.