Taraas Healing, first published in 1951, is Janice Holt Giles's third
novel and the last of her Kentucky Mountain trilogy, which includes The
Enduring Hills and Miss Willie. Readers will find themselves on Piney
Ridge again with Hod and Mary Pierce and their neighbors. This is the
story of Tara Cochrane, who had been Hod's captain during World War II.
Tara had returned from Europe to study medicine and start a practice,
only to collapse with a severe nervous breakdown. Hod finds him in the
hospital, scarcely recognizable as the tough commander who had slogged
it out beside his men through France, Germany, and Austria. When the
time comes for Hod to leave the hospital, he persuades Tara to go with
him in the hope that the peace of the hill country will effect a cure
where medicine has failed.