Anticipating a relaxing retirement, Father Tim returns to his hometown for the first time in decades when he receives an anonymous summons, an event that leads to his discovery of long-buried secrets and new people. By the author of Light from Heaven. (General Fiction)

As the name suggests, the town of Holly Springs in southern Wake County originated at a place where freshwater trickles from deep aquifers and where 40-foot-tall holly trees have endured storms and droughts, wars and depressions, and times of peace and prosperity. In Colonial times, a small cluster of homes and businesses formed around the original "holly springs" in an area that once was a Tuscarora Indian hunting ground. The tiny community included a sawmill, cotton gin, and store. In later years, a few miles to the north, Archibald Leslie purchased 180 acres at the intersection of two roads near another freshwater spring. He opened a tailoring business and store, and began construction on a 38-room manor. Today all that remains of the Leslie estate is the main house, listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Leslie-Alford-Mims House. A short dirt trail winds through the woods to the springs.

The editors of Southern Living Magazine presents House Plans.

Images of America: Holly Springs commemorates the founding and development of northwest Mississippi's quaintest city. Located in Marshall County, Holly Springs was built by pioneering families, some of whose descendants still own land purchased during the Chickasaw Indian Land Cession of 1832. Holly Springs endured Union occupation during the Civil War and a yellow fever epidemic in 1878. Famous homes, including the raised cottage Featherston Place and the grand manor Airliewood, are included in this volume, as is the city's historical Presbyterian church, the outer walls of which bear the scars of Civil War minie balls and shrapnel. Also showcased is Rust College, a historically black institution founded in 1866 that thrives today.

Follow Father Tim and Cynthia on their journey to research his Kavanagh ancestry in the Irish countryside in this novel in the beloved Mitford series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon. Vacation—the very word has been foreign to Episcopal priest Tim Kavanagh. Now retired from tending his flock in the village of Mitford, he is making good on a promise to show his wife, Cynthia, the charming land of his Irish ancestors. But after arriving at a Lough Arrow fishing lodge in the midst of a torrential downpour, the charm disappears. They find their holiday upended by an intruder, a treasured painting is stolen from the lodge, and a family conflict dating back nearly a century turns even more bitter. As three generations struggle to find deliverance from the crucifying power of secrets, Tim and Cynthia stumble upon a faded journal that might just explain the crime—and offer a chance at redemption.