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Summary: I love the Ballad series
Review: The Songcatcher is the story of a family in Tennessee, a father and daughter who can't communicate with each other at all. The father is a retired judge who respects his housekeeper's opinion more than his daughter's. The daughter is a famous folksinger who is never quite good enough for her father. Her father is dying and speaking to his dead friends and relatives. The doctor suggests that the housekeeper call Nora Bonesteel, a local woman with "the Sight", to talk to him. They are old friends and she understands about his seeing people noone else sees. Nora suggests that Lark be called home to see her father for what might be the last time. Lark reluctantly agrees, and decides to look for a song that has been in the family for centuries while she is there. Her plane crashes into a mountain on it's way to Hamelin and the search for the song is the only thing keeping her going while they search for her. Nora is visited by ghosts, as usual. There are also a few subplots involving the local residents, mostly the sheriff's office.The ballad series is the McCrumb's best. Her stories revolving around folk songs are always interesting and the characters of Nora Bonesteel and Spencer Arrowood are her best. These characters and the ones from her own family make these novels a joy to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Sheer pleasure to read
Review: The Songcatcher was one of those wonderful discoveries. I picked up the book to read during a meal alone while on a business trip and was capitivated. Ms. McCrumb'interweaving of the story of the song's travel to Appalachia via the travels of Malcolm McCourry family, of the search for Lark McCourry, and of Lark's search for the song was masterful. I can't wait to read another of her books.
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Summary: Songcatcher cuaght me
Review: The Songcatcher was several stories at once, all of them good. Since Joe LaDonne is my favorite of her repeating characters, I wished his part was bigger, but it was good just the same. Sharyn can take a time or a setting and put you in the middle of it. You feel the roll of the sea, the fear of a crashed airplane rolling, the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains. Every time I read one of her books, I fell like I've been on a journey, seen friends, met new people, and lived another part of time.
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Summary: Anxiously awaiting the next book in the series
Review: This book is amazing. All of the ballad novels are wonderful. The murder, mystery, suspense- all of the books were the type you can't put down. This one is no different. Way to go Ms. McCrumb! I look forward to all that you write. The characters and stories are top notch.
Rating: 
Summary: Not her best...
Review: This book was given to me by my sister. The Appalachian mountains have always fascinated me. My husband was born in West Virginia. My son-in-law is from Tennessee. I loved this book - a truly original story spanning three centuries of family history. The editorial review is excellent. I consider this book a "keeper". It is so unique - the gifted author has written a satisfying tale. I had to read the entire book straight thru - it captivated me, informed me, and made me eager for more. It is easy to read, very spellbinding, and I recommend it to all who like reading fiction that seems to be too real to be fiction. Books by James Michener, such as Centennial, give me this same feeling. Time spent reading both these authors is well spent.
Rating:
Summary: An Original Story
Review: This book was given to me by my sister. The Appalachian mountains have always fascinated me. My husband was born in West Virginia. My son-in-law is from Tennessee. I loved this book - a truly original story spanning three centuries of family history. The editorial review is excellent. I consider this book a "keeper". It is so unique - the gifted author has written a satisfying tale. I had to read the entire book straight thru - it captivated me, informed me, and made me eager for more. It is easy to read, very spellbinding, and I recommend it to all who like reading fiction that seems to be too real to be fiction. Books by James Michener, such as Centennial, give me this same feeling. Time spent reading both these authors is well spent.
Rating:
Summary: McCrumb at her best
Review: This is a wonderful book, true to the spirit of Appalachia and full of interesting characters.It follows the history of a song through two centuries and interweaves the life of Malcolm McCorry, kidnapped from Islay in 1751 and a contemporary story of one of his descendants. It is a hard book to characterise, certainly it isn't a conventional mystery, even that is a plus. This book is magic.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow story
Review: This was a very slow story that never really seemed to move anywhere. I had hoped the movie would have been better, but it was even worse. I have read Sharyn McCrumb's books before and enjoyed them.
Rating:
Summary: Threads of History and Song
Review: This, my friends, is literature. A lot of the "important" writers taught in lit classes today wrote popular fiction--even detective fiction--in their day: Dickens, Scott, even Jane Austen; and I suspect that a century or so from now, when the likes of Fay Weldon and Philip Roth are forgotten, people will still be reading and enjoying writers like Terry Pratchett and Sharyn McCrumb. The latest entry in her Ballad Series, with titles drawn from traditional songs, has inspired me to write my first online review, even if I only gave it 4 stars--only because I like a couple of the other books better. I'd have given it 4 1/2 if I could have figured out how. This one is not, like the earlier ones, about murder, though a murder does make a brief appearance; it is about mysteries of time and heredity and the search for an elusive folk song. Nine-year-old Malcolm McCourry first heard "The Rowan Stave" in 1751 aboard the English ship which kidnapped him from his native Islay; after a career at sea and as a prosperous lawyer in New Jersey who fought in the Revolution, he took it with him when he moved west around the turn of the century when he moved west along the Wilderness Road and settled in western Carolina to found a new family. He also took along the family curse: that each McCourry firstborn would never come first with his or her parent; someone else would always come between. Lark McCourry, moderately famous folksinger, doesn't know about the curse, but is familiar with its result. Returning to Hamelin, Tennessee, to see her dying father and to trace the song she remembers hearing as a child, she is lost in the mountains when her small plane crashes. As Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and some of our old friends, and some enjoyable new ones, search for Lark, second-sighted Nora Bonesteel searches for the song. And of course, there are ghosts, literally and metaphorically, playing their part in the story. This is a novel about the persistence of character in family lines, about history and the making of the American--certainly the Appalachian--character, and about how a song survives and changes through history. McCrumb's great gift, even greater than her ability to tell riveting stories, is to create real, three--make that four--dimensional people, and a wonderful sense of place and time that makes the reader live in her books, hoping against hope that things will work out for people one cares deeply about. I like and own all McCrumb's books. She has two other series: the BIMBOS/ZOMBIES books about science fiction fandom, and the Elizabeth MacPherson series, all mysteries, and all good. But the Ballad Series is superb. IF EVER I RETURN, PRETTY PEGGY-O is still my favorite, because the reminiscences of high school are so painfully accurate reflections of my own experience. SHE WALKS THESE HILLS is the most haunting. But none of them should be missed, by mystery readers, fans of Appalachian regional stories, or anyone who loves a good book.
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Summary: A Family Made of Stories and Ballads
Review: Using her own family history as a springboard, Sharyn McCrumb has woven a fictitious ballad, an American geneaology, and the Appalachian landscape into an engaging novel telling one story after another, switching perspectives and historical periods effortlessly. She is a writer of considerable skill. An elderly man is dying and talking to guests who are not there; his daughter, a famous country singer, is on a quest for a song she recalls hearing once in her childhood. That song's journey is traced all the way from a pirate ship anchored off of Scotland to contemporary America. To some, we may be hearing from too many ancestors by novel's end, but the song itself speaks of change, and we watch how the song changes, along with the American nation where it has arrived, and every story matters.
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