John Ehle Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

John Ehle was an American published author.

John was born in Asheville on December 13, 1925. He was the oldest child in a family that had five children. Together they grew up in the North Carolina mountains. This would go on to become a setting for quite a few of his works.

John Ehle served during the second world war. When he returned, he attended university at U.N.C. at Chapel Hill. He received his bachelors and masters degree there. That was also the setting for his meeting with Paul Green, the playwright. He would go on to start writing himself, composing plays for a radio series called American Adventure.

This author would teach for a decade at university before leaving to join the staff of Terry Sanford, the governor of North Carolina. He was the idea man for Sanford, functioning as a think tank of only one person. He worked for him for two years. The governor said himself that if he were to come up with a guidebook to help out new governors, he would suggest that the governor track himself down a novelist and hire him.

He authored eleven novels of fiction during his literary career. Seven of these of course made up the Mountain series. Ehle was also the author of several works of nonfiction, six in total. He married Rosemary Harris, an actress. They had one daughter together, Jennifer Ehle, an actress.

John Ehle is the creator and the author of The Mountain Novels. This series kicked off for the first time way back in 1964 with the release of the debut novel, which is titled The Land Breakers. It and several of the other novels have since seen subsequent reprints and releases to the public. The Road is the second book in this series, and it originally was published in 1967. There are five more novels after these in this exciting natural series that shows off the true skill of this author.

He was a writer for television as well. John composed an episode for the General Electric Theater in 1956 called Emergency Call. He also wrote an episode in 1958 for the television series Studio 57 also by the same title, based on the original story. His book Winter People was made into a 1989 movie starring Kurt Russell and Kelly McGillis. His book The Journey of August King was also made into a feature film in 1995. John Ehle passed away March 24, 2018.

The Land Breakers is the first novel in the Mountain series. When a group of characters enters into the wild, they are going to either triumph over the land and work with it or be taken by it to their demise. The group is a motley crew, and they are steadily making their way through a valley high in the mountains, located in the northwestern part of North Carolina.

They are coming to the valley in order to try and work the land. Even they do not know if it will all work out or they will fail in their goal. It will end up being a long five years in which they have to toil in order to try and manifest the community that they envision. One of the hardest things that they all go through is simply their struggle just to make it and survive.

It is not an easy feat to be a pioneer and establish your own homestead in the late eighteenth century. These individuals are about to find out what happens when they decide to take a chance and see if the land of North Carolina will bring them prosperity and fortune.

This is the exciting and interesting fictional look at lives in the eighteenth century. A story of men versus nature and a struggle to find the balance of giving and taking in the wilderness, this is about surviving in country that is totally untamed and still wild. Will they be able to make it? Find out what happens to this group of intrepid explorers of the unknown by picking up this book for yourself!

The Road is the popular second novel in author John Ehle’s Mountain Novels series. If you liked the first book in the series or like the sound of this series, be sure to check out this expressive sequel from a writer that knows North Carolina best.

Reviewers have commented on how Ehle is able to tell a story skilfully and paint the picture of a life spent during a specific period of time marked by hardship in North Carolina. Suffering share equal space with dreams in the quest for survival while in the middle of a landscape that is demanding of those that choose to enter it.

This story may have been published first in 1967 but the tale endures to this day. It is a novel that pioneered the genre of historical fiction even further and stays current as a great story into the modern age.

Weatherby Wright is a builder of railroads. He has a plan that he thinks will be very successful. Wright wants to link the western highlands with North Carolina’s eastern highlands. He grew up in the area, so he knows just exactly what building a railway would result in for the settlers that live in poverty there.

It’s an ambitious vision, but in order to accomplish it he must do what he can to take on Sow Mountain. The mountain is huge in scope, a monolith that is truly massive and made up of rock, earth, water, and vegetation, with ridges on the top.

Wright wants more than anything to build this railroad, but it’s going to take a lot to accomplish. It will need trestles tall enough to cross the ravines, which run deep. It would also require no less than seven tunnels, all made by lasting through granite and shale. This is going to be more involving than simple engineering and construction, however.

Weatherby has opposition in the form of an evangelist. The child says it would be the devil’s work. Then there’s the lack of money, which means he has to use convicts for labor. Will the people of the mountain accept the railroad even if it is built? Read this book to find out!