Jan Karon has created a town where we feel wonderfully at home. Sit back and let them share their joys, their tears, and their hopes with you. John McDonough's warm-hearted narration lifts these residents from the pages and sends them down the streets of this now-familiar town. Jan Karon has filled Mitford with an engaging assortment of characters, both serious and comic. Troubled young parishioners appear with problems and growing pains that test the newlyweds' endurance. A church group camping trip turns the frisky Barnabus into an intrepid explorer. Settling into life together in the small rectory, they find new adventures and challenges waiting for them. As These High, Green Hills begins, Father Tim and his talented neighbor have just returned from their honeymoon. The adventures of Father Tim and his shaggy, scripture-loving dog, Barnabus, begun in At Home in Mitford, have captured the affection of listeners nationwide. (Aug.Jan Karon has attracted an enthusiastic population of fans to her stories set in a little town so cozy that everyone wants to put their feet up and stay awhile. Like glass chips tumbling in a kaleidoscope, the people at Mitford fall neatly into place at story's end, having provided a cozy and satisfying read. Thirteen-year-old Dooley Barlowe was abandoned at the rectory and now struggles to adjust to Timothy's Pygmalion efforts Lacey Turner, also 13, is saved from her father's abuse as much by Timothy as by social services. Most compelling in Timothy's affectionately drawn flock are the young people. A lifelong bachelor adjusting to marriage for the first time at 63, he has no perspective on his faith and future until he and his new wife, Cynthia, are lost-and found-in a cave on a youth-group camping trip. Episcopal minister Timothy Kavanagh of Lord's Chapel is the pivotal character. Mitford is a Southeastern mountain town where everyone turns out for benefactress Sadie Baxter's birthday, where the police chief gives copies of Southern Living to inmates-and where social trouble brews in a hillbilly enclave across the creek. Allusions to past events and cameos by peripheral characters will delight the fan but may frustrate the reader new to Karon's work. This third in the Mitford series (At Home in Mitford-a 1996 ABBY Book of the Year finalist-and Light in the Window) is another sympathetic portrayal of small-town Southern life with just enough drama to carry the plot and gracefully developed portraits of endearing characters.

These high green hills by jan karon