The Valley Where They Danced

This carefully researched work of historical fiction is set in the rural Georgia foothills shortly after World War I—just as the new village of Helen was becoming a rough-and-ready sawmill town and power companies were building dams on the might Tallulah River to provide electricity for Atlanta. This was a time and place where scars from the recent war and the worldwide flu pandemic were still fresh and, all too often, visible. This book presents a world as it surely existed then, where passions run deep, where good choices lead to romance and bad ones set the stage for a twist of an ending at Tallulah Gorge. The Valley Where They Danced introduces you to characters so real you’ll believe they indeed lived here in the Sautee and Nacoochee Valleys of Northeast Georgia. Many, like the L.G. Hardman family—its patriarch a future Georgia governor—actually did. As you come to know them, you will care about them deeply.

Emory Jones grew up in Northeast Georgia’s White County. After a stint in the Air Force, he joined Gold Kist as publications manager. He was the Southeastern editor for Farm Journal Magazine and executive vice president at Freebarin & Company, an Atlanta-based advertising agency. During his career, Emory interviewed and photographed farmers in all 50 states and had articles and photographs published in virtually every U.S. farm publication. He has written four other books, including Distant Voices:The Story of the Nacoochee Valley Indian Mound; a humorous history book called Zipping Through Georgia on a Goat Powered Time Machine; White County 101 and Heart of a Co-op—The Habersham EMC story. Emory is known for his humor, love of history and all things Southern. He and his wife, Judy, live on Yonah Mountain near Cleveland, Georgia.