Set in the misty foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, this newly published historical novel follows two orphans from childhood through the upheaval of the American Civil War.
The Haunted Hills
Charleston, SC, Aug. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Palmetto Publishing has released The Haunted Hills, a new historical novel by Wayne Mergler. Subtitled “A Romance,” the book traces the lives of two orphaned siblings transplanted from Ohio to antebellum Virginia, where folklore, family secrets, and the gathering storm of civil war reshape everything they know.
The story opens in the summer of 1854, when ten-year-old Perry Treadway and his eight-year-old sister Pert step off a train in the tiny hamlet of Blands Ferry, Virginia. Sent from Cincinnati to live with relatives they have never met, the children are taken in by their formidable Aunt Emma and a sprawling, eccentric family on their grandfather’s farm. The misty hollows of the Blue Ridge foothills become their new world, a place where Southern folklore whispers through the landscape and not everything can be explained by daylight.
As Perry and Pert grow up among enslaved workers, free Black neighbors, and relatives both loving and dangerous, they discover that their valley holds its own peculiar magic. But the nation is fracturing. When the Civil War finally reaches their remote corner of Virginia, no amount of wonder or innocence can protect them from its violence. The bonds between brother and sister, the people they love, and the world they have built are all tested to the breaking point.
Mergler is a published editor, veteran English teacher, and dedicated man of letters whose career spans classrooms, theater stages, newspaper columns, and bookshops. The Haunted Hills will appeal to readers of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World, novels that braid family saga, folklore, and unflinching explorations of race into immersive historical fiction. With renewed public interest in Civil War history and the legacy of slavery in American life, Mergler’s novel arrives at a moment when readers are seeking stories that illuminate the past with honesty and complexity.
About the Author: Wayne Mergler is a published editor, veteran English teacher, and dedicated man of letters whose career spans high school and college classrooms, theater stages, newspaper columns, and bookshops. He has edited and published an anthology of literature about Alaska, and his decades of teaching and passion for storytelling inform every page of his fiction. A self-described passionate Charles Dickens fan, he brings a Dickensian eye for eccentric characters, sweeping narrative, and social conscience to American historical fiction.
Born in Virginia and raised in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mergler channels the landscapes, folklore, and mysteries of his boyhood into The Haunted Hills: A Romance. The novel, a double bildungsroman set against the turbulent backdrop of the Civil War era, weaves together history, magical realism, Southern gothic atmosphere, humor, and tragedy. Mergler’s intimate knowledge of the region’s culture and his lifelong study of nineteenth century American life give the story a rare authenticity, while its exploration of gender, sexuality, and race ensures its themes resonate powerfully with contemporary readers.
Mergler has lived in Ohio, Georgia, and Europe, but for more than fifty years Alaska has been his home. He currently resides in Anchorage with his family, including three children and eight grandchildren. When he is not writing, he remains devoted to literature, theater, and the craft of storytelling that has defined his life. Follow Wayne Mergler for updates on new releases.
Media Contact: [email protected]
Available for interviews: Author, Wayne Mergler
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- The Haunted Hills
CONTACT: Leah Joseph Palmetto Publishing [email protected]
