The blinding power of even small facets of nature is the crux of Shuckstack Mountain.

On Samuel Meller’s eighteenth birthday, Hitler invades Poland, and his family’s barn goes up in a blaze of fireworks and misplaced war fever. His poor vision keeps him from Western Front, and Samuel finds himself in the Smoky Mountains, a fire lookout for the forest service. In addition to raging fires, he is forced to confront his youthful foolishness, his own mortality, and the guilt of a survivor.

Shuckstack Mountain echoes the simple sincerity of the transcendentalists while maintaining a sense of wonder as evoked by Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, and David Guterson’s East of the Mountains. $2.99 on Kindle.