Christian Bend: A Novel:

Christian Bend,Tennessee isn’t the kind of place where one expects to find the sorts of secrets the widow Burdy Luttrell has been harboring. Tucked in the hills of East Tennessee, Christian Bend is a place of piercing beauty, where the rivers and love run constant. A community of people who care for each other, for the land, the music and the stories that bind them. It’s called Christian Bend because so many people who settled the area shared the same last name, Christian. It’s a name they all tried to live up to. read more

Sequel to the award-winning MOTHER OF RAIN. When it is a healing they need, the people at Christian Bend, Tennessee, turn to one woman–Burdy Luttrell. Melungeon by birth, Burdy learned the therapeutic properties of roots from the women in her family. When Burdy discovers that Lincoln Memorial University is hosting a class on healing roots, she persuades her friend, Mayne, to drive her up. The two women make a fateful stop at Laidlow Pharmacy at Bean Station where an armed gunman executes three people and critically injures another. Burdy–the woman able to cure others–is now fighting for her life at University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville. One thing is keeping Burdy alive–she has to tell Rain, the boy she has cared for since birth, the secret she’s kept from him all these years. Rain was a deaf toddler when his father Zebulon Hurd was reported presumed dead following the Normandy Invasion. The news sent Maizee Hurd, Rain’s mother, headlong into a mental collapse from which she never recovered. When the now grown Rain gets word that Burdy has been shot, he leaves his job in Rhode Island and rushes back home to Tennessee, completely unaware of Burdy’s secrets and how the shooting at Bean Station will transport them all to another time and place–1950s, Bayeux, France. Karen Spears Zacharias has crafted a mesmerizing novel of tragedy and transformation, a beautiful rendering of fact and fiction, and a tenderhearted narrative of survivors and the battles they face. read more

Karly Sheehan: True Crime Story Behind Karly’s Law

(Redbird Publishing)

“Beautifully written by a very talented investigative journalist. Karen has given us Karly’s legacy, that of a small, bright spirit who loved and was loved. And yet destroyed by heedless caretakers. A must read. Compelling and heartbreaking.”

Ann Rule, NYT author,  Don’t Look Behind You and In the Still of the Night.

“I strongly recommend this book to everyone in the San Francisco Criminal Justice System.”

Journal of San Francisco Police Officers Association

“The art with which Zacharias carefully reconstructs events leading up to a senseless, painful tragedy is reminiscent of In Cold Blood in its power. Zacharias employs a sure sense of pace and description that enables this heartbreaking, never-salacious memoir to read like a thriller.” read more

Mother of Rain: A Novel

(Mercer University Press)

“Beautifully drawn Appalachian characters, a strong sense of time and place, and a deeply important and universal theme: the interconnection of our actions and guilt (the patchwork quilt image). Like Blake, Zacharias deals with the complexity of the “fearful symmetry”, adding a profundity to her tale that gives it a superb richness.”

Weatherford Award for Best in Appalachian Fiction/ Appalachian Studies Association & Berea College.

“Zacharias does a wonderful job of capturing the speech of the Appalachian mountain people and their ways. Every word rings true – as a daughter of Appalachia myself, I recognize the authentic ring of the words and the tragedy that often hides in the folds of the mountains. This is Zacharias’ first novel and a fine debut it is, indeed.” read more

Will Jesus Buy Me a Doublwide? ‘Cause I need more room for my plasma TV

(Zondervan)

“I have been a ‘have’ and a ‘have-not’ in my live. I have found in my walk with the Lord, as Karen illustrates so well in these beautiful stories, that the riches he desires for us have nothing to do with money. I love a writer who’s not afraid to walk with real people and speak the truth of their lives. Keep shining your light Karen!”

Jeff Foxworthy

“If the prosperity gospel had a heart, Karen has stomped that sucker flat. This is a worthy read.”

William Paul Young, author, The Shack “ read more

Where’s Your Jesus Now?

(Zondervan)

“Heartbreaking and witty, full of compassion and righteous outrage. It’s a fascinating book.”

AJ Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically

“Karen Zacharias has testified! This book is funny, fierce, and fearless. My stomach hurts from laughing, and my heart aches from finding the truth.” Doug Crandell, author of Hairdos of the Mildly Depressed and The Flawless Skin of Ugly People

“If Karen Spears Zacharias should turn evangelist, the stadium will be full every night.” Sonny Brewer, author of The Poet of Tolstoy Park read more

After the Flag has been Folded

(William Morrow)

“A relentless narrative, brilliantly written and paced, told by a daughter whose father was killed in action in Vietnam and the devastating effect it had on the author and her family. I am giving this book to my daughters.” Pat Conroy

“A dead-honest, raw-edged memoir on how the death of her father in Vietnam changed her life and the lives of everyone around her. Wonderfully told.”

Joseph Galloway

“A beautiful and important book. It thrums with real life and the beating heart of not only her own family’s history, but everyone’s history. This book will stay with me always.” read more

Benched: The Memoirs of Judge Rufe McCombs

(Mercer Univ. Press), 1997. Nominee: Georgia Author of the Year

Book Karen