Prisons, the first volume of The Beulah Quintet - Mary Lee Settle's unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture, class, and identity and the meaning of freedom - follows the coming-of-age of Johnny Church from English youngster to dashing Oxford adolescent to idealistic Puritan in the service of Cromwell's Parliamentary Army. Throughout his evolution, Johnny seeks emancipation from a multitude of emotional, political, and religious prisons, not realizing that with each successive grasp at freedom, he escapes one form of captivity only to be confined by another. When Cromwell, the leader Johnny has supported so staunchly, limits the freedoms for which Johnny has taken up arms, he bravely questions the commander. Shortly thereafter he finds himself held in a prison of stone and mortar where, as an example to other soldiers tempted to champion their rights, he is executed. Based on a true incident of the English Civil War, Prisons captures the promise and tragedy of the conflict that led to one of the first substantial migrations to North America and lays the foundation for the next chapter in Settle's riveting saga - O Beulah Land.

O Beulah Land, the second volume of The Beulah Quintet ―Mary Lee Settle's unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture, class, and identity and the meaning of freedom―is a land-hungry story. It follows the odyssey of Johnny Church's descendants as they leave England in search of freedom and land. One of those descendants, Jonathan Lacey, settles in the backcountry of Virginia, where he battles both Native Americans and white frontier bandits and builds the beginning of a flourishing estate named Beulah. The novel closes shortly before the commencement of the Revolutionary War, with Lacey elected to the House of Burgesses and his family line firmly established in what is to become the state of West Virginia.

An unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture,class, identity, and the meaning of freedom Set in the decades preceding the Civil War, Know Nothing tells the tragic tale of Peregrine Catlett and his second son, Johnny. The year 1837 brings a host of perils to their verdant West Virginia valley. Amid financial panic, debate over the abolition of slavery, and mounting tension between North and South, Peregrine considers freeing his slaves but believes that, with his children scattered, his only hope of retaining his plantation rests on the use of slave labor. Johnny returns to this father's farm but stays only until the outbreak of hostilities. He soon loses sight of his reasons for joining the Confederate forces and ends up fighting both family and friends with disastrous results.

An unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture,class, identity, and the meaning of freedom In a novel about casual and heedless acts that often lead to unthinkable results, Mary Lee Settle traces the fall of a West Virginia town that was first made rich by coal, then corrupted and destroyed by it. Set in 1912, The Scapegoat propels the readers with astonishing immediacy to a fateful day in a coal miners' strike when distant relatives of Beulah dynasty, only dimly aware of their blood ties, face off in a dispute that escalates in the slaughter of an innocent man. Emotions escalate to a frenzy of violence as Mother Jones, leader of the striking miners, calls for action in a community devastated by Southern resignation and by guilt associated with selling out to Eastern investors.

An unforgettable generational saga about the roots of American culture,class, identity, and the meaning of freedom The Killing Ground begins in 1978 with the return of Hannah McKarkle to her hometown of Canona, West Virginia, where she sets out to remove the shroud of mystery that has surrounded her brother's murder for more than two decades. In her quest Hannah pieces together a collective history of Canona, peels away the facades that mask the town's "best people," and becomes acquainted with the community's unpretentious citizenry. Her search for truth reveals a heritage that extends back to Johnny Church of Prisons, bringing the story of The Beulah Quintet full circle and yielding a tale told with moving conviction.