Black Bill: A Novel of Walker Valley and Tremont in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

?1859 - Walker Valley, now known as Tremont, in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is just beginning its intricately woven community; a tapestry of freedom, unity, connection, and unconventional relationships.

Founded by one man, as comfortable in the mountains as if he were part of the peaks themselves, William Marion "Black Bill" Walker was a jovial, hard-working, savagely independent type, whose life centered around a unique interpretation of the Bible: married to three women. At the same time.

Surrounded by deeply religious folk, some tried in vain to teach him the errors of his ways. But he wouldn't have any of it, following Bible stories that he was sure God wanted him to follow.

Through exhaustive research, the author delves deep into this tapestry of unconventional relationships. Though a work of fiction, the people described are real, as are all major events. Within these pages are historical facts and exact quotes taken from some of the best sources, some from the very memoirs of the people themselves.

Join Bill Walker and Walker Valley as they face joys and tragedies, acceptance and doubts, and then, challenges to their very way of life; forced to adapt to the coming of the logging industry and, eventually, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.


About the Author
Catherine Astl holds a Master's Degree in English- Literature and Curriculum from Southern New Hampshire University, a Bachelor's in English-American Literature from University of South Florida, and is a graduate of the International Summer Schools Shakespeare and Literature program at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England. She also holds an Associate of Science degree in Legal Assisting and worked as a civil litigation trial paralegal for 27 years before switching to her current position teaching English Literature.

Catherine lives in Wesley Chapel, Florida, where she spends time with family and friends, reads, writes, travels, and scours bookshops to add to her personal library of 2000+ books which is always expanding.

After writing a trade magazine column, two non-fiction books and two novels, all of which received much acclaim in the academic and literary fields, Catherine began focusing on the stories of the people who lived in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park before it became a park.

"Oliver's Crossing - A Novel of Cades Cove", was released in 2020, immediately going to the publisher's best seller list. Next came "Gatlin's Gateway - A Novel of Gatlinburg", "Mountain Mulekick - A Novel of Moonshine in Cades Cove and Chestnut Flats", and "Home of the Soul-A Novel of the Walker Sisters", all of which made the publisher's best seller list.

Catherine is hard at work on her next smoky mountain historical novel.