James Markert recently contacted us to let us know about his latest book The Angels’ Share, a novel where he combines his passion for bourbon with his background in history. During his first tour to a bourbon distillery, he knew then and there the two needed to be combined into this book, bearing this title.

The stage for this novel is set in the midst of Bourbon country in the fictional town of Twisted Tree, Kentucky. When prohibition is over, in the midst of the great depression in the 1930’s, the McFee family returns to the Old Sam McFee distillery in the town that once heavily depended on the distillery, but is now falling apart as long as the distillery is keeping its doors closed.

William McFee, oldest son of the McFee family, living at the distillery house with his parents and younger siblings, discovers about his family’s troubled past filled with intrigues and revenge, finds his own passion and his first love in between a group of unexpected people who gather around the distillery grounds and the recently buried drifter at the graveyard next door. The distillery slowly becomes a central point of the town’s activity again, but it may not exactly be because of the right reasons.

Is the distillery really as silent as it seems, or is there more going on between the empty ricks in the warehouses and the white oak trees surrounding the distillery? James takes us on an easy to read journey that shows us how things might have been in the difficult times in the first half of the last century. The story is shrouded in a cloud of father and son bonding, a blooming romance, redemption and mysteries as curious as any Angels’ Share seeping through the cracks of bourbon warehouses.

Thanks James for sharing a copy of your book with us!

About the author
James Markert lives with his wife and two children in Louisville, Kentucky, has a history degree from the University of Louisville and won an IPPY award for The Requiem Rose, which was later published as A White Wind Blew. The Angels’ Share is his second novel, and he is currently writing his next historical novel, Leopold and the Lion.

Info on the book

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Copyright notice: Book photo by WhiskySpeller