The novel begins when a stranger comes to town...Noah Locke, a gifted fisherman, has wandered up from Georgia, doing odd jobs and fishing. Noah had been with the Forty-second Infantry when they liberated Dachau and images of what he saw there still haunt his dreams. The friendly residents of Bowerstown, N.C. take an interest in the mysterious young man and encourage him to stay at least until the annual fishing contest. Littleberry Davis, the six-time champion has become too arrogant and the townsfolk would like to see him taken down a peg. Noah agrees to stay and is given a room by a young widow whose soldier husband killed himself shortly after returning home from the war. Over the course of the next week, Noah will be let into the secret lives of the town's residents and join with them as they mourn a tragedy. The novel ends with a miracle that surprises everyone except Noah...and will be the sign he needed to find his way home at last.

Beautifully capturing the rhythms and personalities of small town life, Terry Kay's novel is a tender celebration of the special gifts inside each of us. The simplicity of Kay's prose belies the mythic nature of his story. Luminous, memorable, and deeply moving, The Valley of Light is Kay's finest work to date.