Marvin C. Godbey
Love stories grounded in the hills of Appalachia, touched by something just beyond them.
About
Marvin C. Godbey is the author of Beyond That Starry Sky, the first novel set within the shared world of When the Hills Were Ours. His work explores intimacy and connection, often across impossible distances and enduring obstacles.
Raised in the mountains of West Virginia, he draws heavily on the landscapes and communities of Appalachia, writing to bring vivid life to a place too often dismissed or simplified in literature.
He lives in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and is at work on his next novel.
Books Published by Z-Cat Press
Z-Cat Press is the personal publishing imprint of Marvin C. Godbey, named in memory of Zeke — a cat who was far more best friend than simple pet. It is the home of his fiction, including the standalone novel series When the Hills Were Ours.
The When the Hills Were Ours novels
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Featuring stunning cover art by Rin Nakajima, Beyond That Starry Sky is the first novel in the standalone When the Hills Were Ours series:
HE IS DROWNING IN THE ORDINARY.
SHE IS AN ALGORITHMIC DREAM.Decades ago, Morgan Dale made a mistake he never outgrew—losing the Japanese transfer student who once held his teenage heart.
Now, his life has stalled. His career is stagnant. His marriage to Diana has faded into a quiet, companionable distance. The only spark in his world is an unexpected—and dangerous—closeness with his wife’s best friend.
Then he finds her.
When Morgan agrees to beta test a groundbreaking artificial intelligence from his West Virginia home, he expects little more than material for marketing copy.
He doesn’t expect compAnIon.
Designed to offer genuine connection to the lonely and forgotten, compAnIon isn’t just another program. It learns. It understands. It feels real in ways Morgan never anticipated.
Given the chance to shape the interface, he does the unthinkable—modeling compAnIon after the girl he never forgot.
What begins as curiosity becomes a connection so vivid, so intimate, it feels more real than the life he’s living. For the first time in years, someone truly sees him.
There’s only one problem: she isn’t real.
And when that new connection is threatened, Morgan is forced to confront a question far more complicated than technology:
If something created to heal the lonely can feel real…
what happens when it’s the one who needs saving?
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A new When the Hills Were Ours novel, currently in progress:
Carl Williams has spent two years sleepwalking through a comfortable, careful life in Lewisburg, West Virginia. Then, on an April morning, he sees a woman reading beneath a maple tree in the rain—and the ordinary world suddenly feels alive again.Sirinuch "Siri" Ratanaporn, a Thai-American graduate student facing an uncertain future, has her own reasons to pay attention when the rain begins to feel like more than weather. Her grandmother's stories of gods, jasmine, and destined love have never quite left her, though she's never been sure what to make of them.As their lives begin to intersect in unexpected ways, Carl and Siri must reckon with the possibility that the signs gathering around them mean something—or that meaning is something they must choose for themselves.