"Adam Watkins is the illegitimate son of Little Sam Jenkins, founder of the snake-handling Holiness sect in Appalachia. Denied by his father, abandoned by his mother, Adam has been in flight from his past for twenty years - until he returns to investigate the possible murder of his father by one of the church members. The suspect, Blue, is a fiery-haired, purple-eyed beauty with a clouded past and a reputation for being immune to earthly harm. Carried from the mountains of Asia at the age of thirteen by her professor husband and educated into his willed universe of reason and civility, she represents everything that is foreign yet familiar to the world of the snake handlers." "When Blue and Adam meet, the power that moves between them is both dark and exhilarating. Will their sudden love, like the mortal bite of a poisonous snake taken up in mid-prayer, destroy or redeem them?"--BOOK JACKET.