Where the Dogwood Grows

Where the Dogwood Grows: The Runaway
By John W. Lipscomb
Hannah Mercer never meant to find Dogwood Ridge.
She was simply hungry, exhausted, angry, and determined to keep running.
When she quietly slips into Emma and Caleb's wedding reception hoping to take enough food to last another day, she expects to be chased away. Instead, Emma offers her a plate, a place to rest, and something Hannah no longer knows how to trust-kindness without conditions.
But Hannah carries more than a backpack.
She carries anger toward the soldier brother she believes abandoned their grandmother, guilt over the family she left behind, and an old photograph her grandmother once gave her of a place Hannah has never seen.
Until now.
As Hannah begins to recognize the mountain from her grandmother's stories, secrets buried for generations begin to surface-an old farmhouse, an empty chair, a porch light left burning, and the mysterious legacy of a woman once known as the Mountain Queen.
Dogwood Ridge may hold pieces of her grandmother's forgotten past, but Hannah must decide something even harder:
Is she really running away from home...
or is she finally learning what home means?
Where the Dogwood Grows: The Runaway is a heartfelt Appalachian story about family, forgiveness, belonging, second chances, and the courage it takes to stop running long enough to be found.
A lost girl. A hidden past. The mountain that might heal them both.