"With the same
attention to detail she brought to her character's small town childhood,
Willis brings the people, ambiance and events of the urban experience
out of the past and into a fresh light 30 years later. The silky locution
that springs from the Appalachian heritage of storytelling is fully
empowered here. Critics agree: Others have written of the same era,
but few write as well."
-- Claudia Ebeling in Bucknell World
Trespassers,
the final volume in Meredith Sue Willis's luminous Blair Morgan trilogy,
brings its West Virginia-born heroine to the brink of adulthood and
to the epicenter of her generations' rage. it is 1967, and 20-something
Blair is off to New York City to begin life on her own....The novel
is different in tone than the earlier books of the trilogy, in which
it was possible to detect the cadence of West Virginia (right down
to Blair being called Blair Ellen by those who knew her then). This book is blunter, with more dialogue. There's no mistaking New York.
-- Carol Herman in The Washington Times
Willis demolishes dreaded Appalachian female stereotypes....Blair Ellen is a particular girl, to be sure, from a particular region of the country, which itself represents the reforming spirit of the turbulent ‛60's, but her aspirations and experiences in social action speak to a collective, inclusive identity which makes her a representative of her generation, not her region.
— Gina Herring, Appalachian Journal, Volume 25, Number 4, Summer 1998.