OneTribune

Let me tell you a story.

Not long ago, I was driving through the Carolinas on a road trip I didn’t plan well. I was following no GPS, just vibes and barbecue joints. Somewhere off Route Who-Knows-What, the red clay hills rolled past me, like a memory I wasn’t born with but somehow missed. That’s when it hit me—this land remembers. Even if we forget.

Reading Red Clay, Running Waters felt like returning to that moment. Or maybe it felt like I never left.

Leslie K. Simmons doesn’t write a book; she opens a vein and lets history bleed through the soil. You don’t just read this novel—you stand in it. You feel the heaviness of land that holds stories not yet told and the rushing of water that carries them forward anyway.

Do you know what it’s like to inherit trauma you can’t name? To feel a grief passed down like a family recipe—altered, but always recognizable? Simmons knows. Every sentence hums with the tension of ancestry—what we carry, what we hide, and what we hope redemption looks like.

Is it in the eyes of a mother struggling to shield her children from inherited wounds?
Is it in a creek where blood and water have both been spilled?
Is it in a courtroom, a church, a kitchen, a field?

The book doesn’t offer answers as much as it dares you to keep asking.

At one point, I found myself closing the book and just…sitting. Staring at the ceiling like it might whisper something useful. I thought about my grandmother’s stories—how they shifted shape depending on who asked. I thought about how memory isn’t a mirror, it’s a quilt. Some patches bright. Some torn. All sewn tight with intention.

And let’s talk about the writing itself.

Leslie K. Simmons writes like someone who has listened to the wind through pine trees long enough to know it’s speaking. Her prose—lyrical but unpretentious—makes you forget you’re reading. It’s like music you didn’t know you needed until it quiets something in you. The characters are not just people on a page. They are haunted, defiant, loving, broken, resilient. Real.

There’s something rebellious in writing a book like this. In telling stories that were never meant to be told out loud. In claiming history without asking for permission.

By the time I reached the final page, I wasn’t the same. Maybe that sounds dramatic. But if you’ve ever read something that shook loose a part of you you’d buried under “I’m fine” and “not now” and “maybe someday,” then you know.

So here’s my question for you:
Are you ready to remember something you never lived?
Are you ready to feel something deep, ancient, and just a little bit holy?

Because Red Clay, Running Waters doesn’t wait. It flows on—with or without you.

Booknomad Tales Five Stars Award

This book is a winner of the Booknomad Tales Five Stars Award, an accolade that reflects the mission of Booknomad Tales: to explore literature that resonates universally, while celebrating the distinct voices that make global storytelling so vibrant. Whether it’s a contemporary novel, a poignant memoir, or an evocative collection of poetry, award-winning books embody the heart and soul of what it means to be a nomad of the literary world. 

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