Awarded first in Narrative Nonfiction and Memoir/Biography and first in all categories in the 14-state Southeast Region by Reader Views from among publications from small, independent and academic presses

Awarded second place in Narrative Nonfiction and in Women’s Issues by the International Book Awards

Won second place in Women’s Issues in the USA Best Books 2011 Awards

Was nominated for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year by Southern Independent Booksellers Association

Voted Bonus Book of the Year by the Pulpwood Queens

Imagine sleeping with the enemy in the hills of Tennessee when the enemy totes a Bible and packs a .38. Mike shoved and slapped but his primary tools were isolation and economic abuse until he discovered the power of the Lord. As the Sycamore Grows is a nonfiction narrative about ending the legacy of abuse. Ginger McNeil was brought up to pray and obey, but she escaped the padlocked cabin in the woods where she lived off the land with no electricity or telephone.

Today, she’s a court advocate in the domestic court system. Her husband Mike admits the abuse, holds no remorse, and would do it all again. God made women to serve, he says. It’s their job. Both Ginger and Mike speak, as do family, friends, ex-spouses, and others. Threading through the story is loss: the alienation of families, a spiritual void from betrayal by their church, and the death of the son Ginger had abandoned.