Pineville Trace

-Etchings Press Novella Prize Winner

-Independent Press Award for Audiobook & Literary Fiction Distinguished Favorite

-Publishers Weekly BookLife Editor’s Pick

-Next Generation Indie Book Award for First Novel Finalist

-Feathered Quill Book Award for Debut Author Finalist

-Featured on Deep South Magazine's Reading List

PINEVILLE TRACE, a multi-award-winning novella-in-flash from the University of Indianapolis’ Etchings Press, is an “introspective, haunting tale that remains with us” (Heavy Feather Review) and “an utterly compelling read” (SmokeLong Quarterly) about a former revival preacher who walks away from an Eastern Kentucky prison in the 1970s, following a cat named Buffalo and trying to reconcile himself with his past. For readers who like cats, nature, and escape.

As Frank traverses the shadowy edges of society, he encounters remnants of his former self, forcing him to confront his deepest regrets and desires. Blake’s haunting prose captures the essence of a man on the brink of transformation, urging readers to ponder the thin line between redemption and damnation.

“A man escapes from prison only to find he can’t separate himself from his past. Wes Blake renders the tale with great empathy and in language that’s so lyrical it practically lifts from the page. Blake is a writer to watch.”

—Lee Martin, author of the Pulitzer Prize Finalist The Bright Forever

“Blake’s atmospheric prose will pull readers into Frank’s resigned fatalism, and Pineville Trace serves as the incisive, elegiac odyssey of a confidence man who has lost his sense of spiritual direction.”

—Publishers Weekly

"Blake’s prose is sparse and simple, whose short, almost broken, sentences sing with enormous power."

—SmokeLong Quarterly

"A haunting debut! Despite his own certainty that he is a fraud, Frank emerges for the reader as the truest kind of prophet, following a cat named Buffalo and searching for “the old magic.”

—Julie Hensley, author of Five Oaks