THE WATERSMITH
A cross between The Alchemist and Demon Copperhead, The Watersmith follows a bereaved moonshiner who gives up whiskey to distill human ‘spirits.’
When hard-drinking handyman Jack Calloway discovers an old moonshine still behind the Smoky Mountain cabin he plans to flip, his teenage son dares him to repair it. Jack accepts—until his wife, Jolene, tries to sabotage the first batch and is horribly burned in the process. Wracked with guilt, Jack sends their son away and moves Jolene into the cabin to recover while he tries to sober up.
A cross between The Alchemist and Demon Copperhead, The Watersmith follows a bereaved moonshiner who gives up whiskey to distill human ‘spirits.’
When hard-drinking handyman Jack Calloway discovers an old moonshine still behind the Smoky Mountain cabin he plans to flip, his teenage son dares him to repair it. Jack accepts—until his wife, Jolene, tries to sabotage the first batch and is horribly burned in the process. Wracked with guilt, Jack sends their son away and moves Jolene into the cabin to recover while he tries to sober up.
Doctors diagnose Jolene with a rare post-traumatic dementia that responds only to scent, smell being the strongest trigger of memory. Desperate to help, Jack begins distilling essential oils from her favorite flowers, searching for the one that might bring her back. When a fleeting moment of clarity during a visit from their son slips away, Jack grows frantic, willing to distill anything in his grasp to reach her.
A haunting yet tender tale of love, regret, and the volatile bonds between parents and children, The Watersmith is a story of oil and water, memory and mercy, and how far one man will go to bring his family home.
- Regal House Publishing
- Paperback
- August 2026
- 224 Pages
- 9781646037414
Buy the Book
$19.95
About Yance Wyatt
Yance Wyatt was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied fiction at the University of Cambridge and the University of Southern California, where he has gone on to serve as a Professor of Writing and the Director of the Writing Center. As a two-time finalist for the Lit/South award and a fiction editor with the Southern culture magazine The Blue Mountain Review, he seeks to acquire the best new stories from the South. His own stories have appeared in dozens of nationally circulated literary journals and received several Pushcart Prize nominations. The Watersmith is his first novel. Visit him @yancewyatt or at www.yancewyatt.com.