Book Review: Deep Down by Karen Harper

If you enjoy reading about the backwoods of Kentucky and old mountain folklore, the book Deep Down, by Karen Harper should be next on your reading list. The story is set in a small town in Kentucky called Deep Down.

Jessie Lockwood was born and raised in the mountain town, as was many ancestors before her. Jessie got herself into a fix with a local mountain bad boy, and her mother, Mariah, saw fit to send her off to live with a lady in Lexington.

Jessie then became Jessica and attended the finest college and traveled the world with her "adoptive" mother. She was now a renowned scientist and traveled the world researching cures for cancer.

Jessie's real mother, Mariah, spent her time trampling through the mountains and hollers of Deep Down, keeping an eye on the prized ginseng crops. Mountain folk and Native Americans believe that ginseng has medical powers and they hold the ginseng to be very sacred.

It is also worth a lot of money to buyers. Mariah controls the count, and keeps most of the ginseng patches a secret, so that poachers do not steal it, or so it does not become extinct, due to over harvesting.

Jessica receives a phone call while she is in Hong Kong, researching the exact ginseng that grows in her home town of Deep Down. The bad boy that caused her to leave her mountain life is now the Sheriff of Deep Down and he is telling her that her real mother Mariah is missing!

Jessica returns to the small mountain town of Deep Down, determined to find out what has happened to her mother. She is thrust right into working with the bad boy Sheriff that still makes her heart flutter!

As the two of them hunt and search, they run into tales of Cherokee folklore, an Asian ginseng buyer, and a body builder who wants the ginseng for an energy drink. The also find that Mariah has been murdered and stashed into a sacred Cherokee tree, covered with ginseng leaves.

Karen Harper does a wonderful job of keeping this book factual, yet twisting and turning right up until the very end. Who killed Mariah? Did they do it to keep her quiet because the ginseng count was to low to allow it to be sold? Did the old Cherokee man that lived next door to her do it to stop folks from messing with the ginseng?

Karen Harper will keep you guessing and on edge right up until the last page! Deep Down is a delightful mixture of Mountain Lore, Cherokee Lore and a sprinkling of scientific facts about the research of ginseng to help breast cancer.
I got my copy of Deep Down by Karen Harper from the Literary Guild book club, simply because it sounded interesting. I enjoy reading about mountain legends and Cherokee lore. I also enjoy reading about the things the earth gives us that should be sacred and respected. This book covers it all.

The only draw back is that once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. Karen Harper writes so well and descriptively that you will feel like you are right there on every hill and holler Jessica and the bad boy Sheriff cover in their quest to discover who killed Mariah!