Book Blurb:
Following her powerful debut in The Witch’s Orchard, private investigator Annie Gore returns in Brimstone Hollow, bringing readers back to the mountains that author Archer Sullivan, a ninth-generation Appalachian, knows so well.
There isn’t much that happens in the Appalachian Mountains that Private Investigator Annie Gore hasn’t seen. Before she was an Air Force Special Investigator, she was born and raised in those rolling hills, and lately Annie’s cases have called her away from her Louisville office and closer to the small towns of her youth than she ever anticipated. But when her newest client asks if she’s ever been to a snake-handling church, Annie knows she’s about to enter unknown territory.
Katie May has been estranged from her father—one of Appalachia’s last infamous snake handling preachers—for twenty years. But when Katie finds out he’s been fatally bitten, and a funeral was held within twenty-four hours, she questions whether someone deliberately rushed the process. Despite Annie’s doubts, she takes the case. After all, when she looks at Katie, she sees a version of herself: a girl who needs to understand her father in order to understand herself.
As she navigates the hidden hollers and dangerous secrets of this insular Eastern Kentucky town, Annie works fast, hoping to find the truth in record time for her client—and before too many memories from her own childhood surface. But it soon becomes apparent that someone wants Annie’s investigation to stop—by any means necessary.
His Review:
Annie Gore has been a police officer and investigator but is now on her own in private business. A distraught girl has been estranged from her father for over 20 years but needs to get in touch with him. She hires Annie to investigate and locate her father. He happens to be a very famous snake-charming evangelist. His church is located near Brimstone Hollow.
She teams up with Detective Dishman of the Brimstone Hollow Police Department but things go south very fast. People associated with Annie’s father wind up being murdered. The plot thickens as there are now three bodies! Meanwhile, the preacher is away giving tent ministry displays in another county. When he returns to the church, disaster happens. What can Annie report back to the minister’s daughter regarding her father?
This story has a whirlpool effect as everyone associated with the pastor seems to be winding up dead or a very viable suspect. The author has woven a very intricate plot with sharp turns and deaths whenever someone gets too close to the church and its’ pastor. Read and enjoy, it is a well contrived story. 4.5 stars – CE Williams
Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Any opinion expressed here is my own.
Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars 
Book Details:
Genre: Witch & Wizard Mysteries, Private Investigator Mysteries, Small Town & Rural Fiction
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: August 11, 2026
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link(s):
Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Kobo
The Author: Archer Sullivan is a ninth generation Appalachian. She’s moved thirty-seven times and has lived everywhere from Monticello, Kentucky to Manhattan, New York and from Black Mountain, North Carolina to Beverly Hills, California. Her work has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Tough, Shotgun Honey, Reckon Review, Rock and a Hard Place, and The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024. Connect with Archer Sullivan at his website. [Goodreads]
©2026 CE Williams – V Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 