Valerie Nieman

Selected Works

Latest

Upon the Corner of the Moon, set to release in March 2025, is the first of two books telling the story of the historical Macbeths. Deeply researched history in the mode of Hilary Mantel, it is as much about women's lives and competing spiritualities as it is about politics and war. It traces the childhoods and young adulthoods of Macbeth and Gruach and Duncan, setting out the generations-old conflicts that will lead to a succession drama and his rise to kingship of all Alba.

Novels

In the Lonely Backwater

All Maggie Warshauer wants is to leave behind her stifled life at a North Carolina backwater and escape to college. An outsider at school and uncertain of her own sexual identity, Maggie spends her days sailing, exploring, and categorizing life around her. But when her beautiful cousin Charisse disappears on prom night and is found dead at the marina where Maggie lives, her life begins to unravel. A mysterious stranger begins stalking her and a detective on the case has her struggling to hold on to her secrets—her father's alcoholism, her mother's abandonment, a boyfriend who may or may not exist, and her own actions. Maggie is forced to come to terms with the one person who might hold the answers—herself.

Dead Hand

Lourana and Darrick took down the dreaded coal barons in To the Bones, but it seems that Kavanaghs aren't done yet. The college-age son of Eamon Kavanagh has unexpectedly inherited not only the family's business empire but the family itself: generations of Kavanagh men whose spirits persist and who have now taken up residence in Rory's mind and body.
As Lourana and Darrick try to shape a life together, they are attacked by Eamon through Rory, and flee the life-sucking Kavanaghs across Appalachia and then, in desperation and hope, to Ireland.
The reluctant Rory is urged onward in the pursuit. He seeks the support of his late uncle Cormac in hopes of breaking free of this haunted legacy, even as he woos Lourana's daughter Dreama—who is Cormac's former girlfriend.
The Kavanagh family's long-standing belief that they are descended from the kings of Leinster is tested at a sacred site in Ireland, with the assistance of a modern-day druid whose nature-based powers may not be all that he claims. There are old gods at work, and even older gods—Darrick's psychic powers like the Kavanaghs' are rooted in ancient Ireland.
As Rory struggles against his brutal forebears, Darrick and Lourana find their love tested anew, until they are all brought together in a terrifying battle between the forces of light and dark, creation and destruction.

To the Bones

With elements of horror, Appalachian tall tale, and mystery, To the Bones sets four unlikely heroes against a family of predatory capitalists. "Evocative, intelligent prose conjures an anxious mood and strong sense of place while spotlighting the societal and environmental devastation wrought by the coal mining industry."

-- Kirkus Reviews

Neena Gathering

"This charming, unpretentious novel delves into a different form of the pastoral, modeling itself on Thoreauvian attention to a person's place and moral actions in the spheres of nature, society, intellect..."

–Publishers Weekly

Blood Clay

Blood Clay, set in rural North Carolina, traces the "tangled social lines of the new South, the struggle of newcomers to belong, and of natives to keep their balance in changing times."

–Gently Read Literature

Poetry Collection

Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse

Set in a mid-century carnival, this collection has a cover image painted by the author during studies at Coney Island Museum. The curator of that museum, Lisa Schaefer, said of the book, "Steeped in sideshow tradition, and addressing issues of race, gender, self-concept, and creative expression, your book is beautifully written."

Hotel Worthy

Poems of love, loss, and survival.
"Like a daring archeologist, the poems of Hotel Worthy dig [deeply] into the intimate layers of years, excavating the fossils of memory, love, loss, and family history. These poems compel us to have the courage to emerge from our past shipwrecks and embark anew. This collection is a roadmap for beginning again."

–Ansel Elkins, Yale Younger Poets Prize winner

Wake Wake Wake

Debut poetry collection featuring work from Appalachia and beyond.

Short fiction collection

Fidelities

These stories, set in the rural areas and mining towns of West Virginia, focus on the rough terrain of the human heart.

Quick Links

Upon the Corner of the Moon

Video trailer for my latest

Book trailer for To the Bones

A video sample of my Appalachian folk horror/ecojustice novel.

Book trailer for Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse

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Eastern Panhandle visit

Owner Kendra Goldsborough holds up signed copies of my work available at Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown, WV. What a lovely store that is, located in the historic downtown.

picture of Valerie Nieman with Pete Mock

In the Lonely Backwater got off to a great start with an event at McIntyre's Fine Books in Pittsboro. I enjoyed getting to know Pete Mock, who's a leading expert in the field of crime fiction and mystery, and who presides over a lovingly curated collection at this bookstore.

Display at McNally Jackson in NYC.

Scuppernong Books display.

Leopard Lady on the shelves.

At the Bridgeport International Poetry Festival, 2019.

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Now available for pre-order at Regal House!

Upon the Corner of the Moon, which tells the story of the young Macbeths from dangerous childhoods through their marriage pledge in the ashes of battle, is now available for pre-order from Regal House Publishers. It's being produced as a limited-edition hardcover, with dust jacket, and as a paperback and e-book. Audiobook rights have been acquired by Tantor Media, if you prefer your immersive reads to be immersive listens!

I'm working with a local printmaker, Lynn Paluga, who's creating a Scottish thistle print that will be tucked inside these signed pre-orders. The print will be signed and numbered, a piece of original art that I hope you'll enjoy for your home or office.

Why is the thistle the national flower of Scotland?

According to legend from the days of the Viking invasions, a band of Norsemen was sneaking up on a village, barefoot, when one stepped on a thistle and cried out. That alerted the dogs and the people, and the Scots won the day.

Signed copies? See these booksellers

In the Lonely Backwater is available widely, but if you'd like a signed copy, you may get one from Scuppernong Books, Page 158, M. Judson Books, BookMarks, Pig City Books, McIntyre's Fine Books, Malaprop's, Book No Further, Plott Hound, Highland Books, Book Bound, Booktenders, Four Seasons Books, The Red Caboose, and many other final indie booksellers as well as Barnes and Noble stores. Just be sure to let them know you're requesting the signature.

Picked one up elsewhere or online? I'll send you a signed bookplate for your copy--just get in touch through the Contact page.

Limited edition hardcovers may be ordered from Regal House.

The ebook is available as an audiobook on many sites, on Kindle or as a Nook book from Barnes and Noble.

There's a beautiful body in the remote North Carolina marina, and Maggie knows more than she's admitting....

To the Bones now in audio as well

To the Bones has been called "a storytelling feat: a pulse-pounding thriller that also manages to construct a whole terrifying, gorgeous mythology" with zombies (of a sort), and vampires (of a sort), and psychics, orange rivers, pits full of bones, rumors of the Rapture -- even a coal baron's mansion with a deep, dark secret.

If you like to listen to scary stories, To the Bones is now available as an audiobook at Chirp, Libro, Amazon Audible, and many other retailers.

Signed copies may be purchased at Scuppernong Books, Malaprop's Books, Sunrise Books, Little Switzerland Books and Beans, and BookMarks in North Carolina; McNally Jackson Books Soho in New York City; Empire Books/Inner Geek and Taylor Books, in West Virginia, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, and City Books in Pittsburgh.

The Barnes and Noble Campus Bookstore at WVU displays To the Bones and other WVU Press titles, as do Books-a-Million in Morgantown and Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown, WV.

You may order copies through any of the fine IndieBound local bookstores, and of course at Amazon, B&N, Powell's, Target and Walmart!

Leopard Lady

Grace Cavalieri writes of Leopard Lady: A Life in Verse: "The Leopard Lady is the product of a powerful writer who knows what she wants and sets the Lady out to find it. Nieman, with vivid language, writes what Leopard Lady believes — including Bible teachings, dramatized and characterized through a fictional mind that suddenly becomes wholly real to us. This is about the stages of life for one whose perseverance is to seek pieces of the puzzle and even a piece of love. The poems are images of truth with stunning versatility."

Signed copies are now available at all the fine bookstores above as well as Quail Ridge Books, So & So Books, McIntyre's Books, at the Coney Island Museum Gift Shop, at White Whale Bookstore in Pittsburgh, and from Press 53 and all the usual online outlets.