Welcome to Sneaky Hollow

Where Red Green meets The Beverly Hillbillies meets Schitt’s Creek By Matthew McCully That’s how Andrew Retchless described the vibe in the village of Sneaky Hollow, the setting- and main... L’article Welcome to Sneaky Hollow est apparu en premier sur Sherbrooke Record .

Where Red Green meets The Beverly Hillbillies meets Schitt’s Creek By Matthew McCully That’s how Andrew Retchless described the vibe in the village of Sneaky Hollow, the setting- and main character- for his debut novel “of love, memory and maple-scented miracles.” After a career in education spanning over four decades and a side gig as the go-to weather expert for the area, Retchless poured his love of the Townships (and mystery, and humour, and magical realism) into what he hopes will become a five-book series. The Sneaky Hollow Chronicles: Where Time Stands Still came about through his Retchless Weather Services Facebook page.

While living in Blanc-Sablanc trying to piece together local weather reports with the help of friends on the ground in the Townships, Retchless started playing around with his forecasts. “I would say February 2025, I started to do these folksy, down home, hillbilly weather forecasts once in a while just for fun. And one day, I said, they need to live somewhere.

These people need to have a home,” the educator-turned writer said. “And so, I invented this fictitious village of Sneaky Hollow. And the Pine Knot General Store and Café, and Earl and Daisy and Harold owned this institution.

And if you could imagine, um, sort of uh the Red Green show bumps into the Beverly Hillbillies bumps into Schitt’s Creek, sort of that kind of idea. All his years in the Townships, curling in different communities, spending time chatting with people, owning a cafe in Beebe; all that also helped develop the book. “I had tried to write a book several times,” Retchless told The Record, “and I always had this idea that somebody’s fed up of living in the rat race in Montreal or in Sherbrooke, and they just want to find a place that’s off the grid and somewhere where there’s, you know, there’s good old town values, sort of like uh Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show, where everybody still says hello and everybody gets together for a coffee.

So I had this opening to a book that I’d written years ago. So I mushed the two together and then I started to write.”

... The first book launch event for Sneaky Hollow will be at Brome Lake Books, Knowlton, at 5pm on August 14, 2026. The books are available to purchase there as of today.

There will also be forthcoming release at Black Cat Books in Lennoxville as well. ... For the full article and more, subscribe to the Record, published every Friday L’article Welcome to Sneaky Hollow est apparu en premier sur Sherbrooke Record .