Submitted photo.
The idea that eventually became Heart & Bone came to Oxford native Randall Abel in a dream.
Two brothers went over a waterfall. One survived. Then came the search for the other and, from that image, the beginnings of a desperate chase through the mountains.
Abel grew up in Oxford and earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Mississippi. Today, he is CEO of NE SPARC, the fiber-optic broadband subsidiary of Northeast Mississippi Electric Power Association (NE Power). NE SPARC serves approximately 16,000 broadband subscribers. Writing a novel was a considerable departure from the engineering and telecommunications work that has occupied most of his professional life.
But the dream stayed with him, eventually becoming part of Heart & Bone, his first published novel, written under the pen name Walker Abel.
Set largely in the winter wilderness of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Heart & Bone follows Emma Fisher and Jake McKellar as they find themselves hunted through the mountains by a man named Jedediah. The novel is a suspense and survival story, but beneath the chase are themes of love, loss, forgiveness and redemption.
The Smokies are more than a backdrop to the story. Readers familiar with the national park will recognize a number of real places along the route as the characters move deeper into the winter mountains.
For Abel, though, one of the most meaningful moments since publishing the novel came much closer to home—on the Oxford Square.
He recently stopped by Square Books and signed several copies of Heart & Bone the store had on hand. It was not a formal signing or an author event. For someone who grew up in Oxford, the moment carried a different kind of significance.
The building that is now home to Square Books once housed Blaylock Drug Store. Abel remembers it from childhood.
“I used to go in there and buy candy when it was a drugstore,” Abel said. “So to walk into that same building all these years later and see a book I wrote sitting on the shelf—it meant the world to me.”
Square Books has long since become one of Oxford’s most recognizable institutions, making the experience of seeing his first novel there especially meaningful for an author whose connection to the town began long before he ever thought of publishing a book.
Heart & Bone is available locally at Square Books, including signed copies, and is also available in paperback and Kindle through Amazon and from other booksellers, including Barnes & Noble.
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