In the Fullness of Time

By: Terry Roberts

Narrated by: Robert Fass

With his customary verve and insight, Terry Roberts's latest novel is an evocative portrait of humankind's capacity for courage, love, and hope as well as folly, and another love ballad to his region of North Carolina.

Clinton Salter is the sheriff who never wanted to be sheriff. A World War II veteran and widower, he is elected due to the political machinations of his brother. His new territory is the fabled Madison County, North Carolina—a place of the steepest mountain ridges and most isolated coves and valleys. A place where the seasons matter more than the calendar and the past is as real as the present.

When he first takes office, he hopes only to deal with the drunk and disorderly and stolen tractors, but matters quickly accelerate into arson, grave robbing, and murder, and he begins to suspect his own brother's motives. He finds solace in the friendship of Catherine Metcalf, a lonely high school principal whose husband has been in a coma and dying for years. Their only refuge is Clinton's farm high in the mountains, where they can retreat from the world. As they seek to create a new life for themselves and the county, political violence and family cruelty threaten to shatter their visions.

©2025 Terry Roberts (P)2025 Highbridge Audio

Evocative of time an place, lyrical prose

I haven’t read a novel this well written in a long time. The spare, beautiful prose is lyrical, the landscape and characters expertly drawn. The characters’ dialect is pitch perfect.
This book is a joy to read.

Awesome Appalachian Suspense!

Terry Roberts does it again. A gripping tale, set in the Appalachia, told in the Appalachian dialect and set in a bygone age. But not so bygone that we can’t imagine it here in Appalachia. I love the WNC details, as always, but you’ll love the scenery even if you aren’t from the area. It’s another amazing book by Mr. Roberts!