Family Life Southern

When Meg shows up at her mother's door, she has no idea how to break the news to her. She's come home from France, pregnant. At just nineteen years old, this wasn't where she saw her life going. Now, trying to hide her growing belly and figure out her next decision, she moves in with her mother, sister and aunt on Seabreeze Island. But, how long can she keep her pregnancy a secret, and what happens if another surprising person shows up at the front door of Julie's house?

When Miss Julia burst on the scene in her debut, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind, this proper lady of a certain age found her orderly world turned upside down when Hazel Marie Puckett appeared with her nine-year-old son, Little Lloyd, who looked disturbingly similar to Miss Julia's late husband. Now, in Miss Julia Takes Over, with her sharp tongue and iron backbone intact, Miss Julia must tackle another disruption when Hazel Marie doesn't return from a dinner date. Miss Julia hires J. D. Pickens to investigate, despite her reservations about his taste for beer and women.

"I'm no one's idea of a savior, Jailbait." Creed Hayes wasn't looking for redemption or a happily ever after, and he sure as hell wasn't looking to save a girl that tempted him beyond all reason. Sloan Spencer was trouble with a capital T. Too young, too innocent, and too damn beautiful. She was also alone and damn near defenseless except for the kitten claws she somehow thought would save her. Taking her home to the club is a cluster waiting to happen, I know it, and she knows it, but I can't stop myself.

Travel with Bret Thoman on this hilarious and touching romp as he narrates his lifelong journey from his American upbringing to a new life in Italy. Written with passion, humor, and candor, this book masterfully captures the heart, soul, and spirit of Italy and the Italians as he navigates the wonder and craziness of this new Italian life. Initially drawn to Florence to study the language and explore his Italian ancestry, he feels a lure to the less touristy South. In the slower half of Italy, dialects are spoken, America is still revered, and lazy lunches are the high point of the day. In ...

For twelve-year-old Martha "Sonny" Creech, there is no place more beautiful than her family's cotton farm. She, her two brothers, and her parents work hard on their land - hoeing, planting, picking - but only Sonny loves the rich, dark earth the way her father does. When a tragic accident claims his life, her stricken family struggles to fend off ruin - until their rich, reclusive neighbor offers to help finance that year's cotton crop.

For her sixth birthday, Fiona Campbell’s mother, Claire, made her a peace-sign piñata filled with wishes for a better planet instead of candy. When she got her period, her mother held a womanhood ceremony at their café and invited the neighborhood. On her 16th birthday, they celebrated with a drum circle. Fiona grew up trying to keep the impulsive Claire in check and their struggling café afloat. She plans to move out, but first she must find a way to stop a big corporation from tearing down their business and destroying her mother’s livelihood.

The Goode-Brown family, led by matriarch and pillar of the community Minnie Mae, is plagued by old secrets and embarrassment over mental illness and illegitimacy. Meanwhile, single mother Francine Clark is haunted by her dead, lightning-struck husband and forced to fight against both the moral judgment of the community and her own rebellious daughter, Mona. The residents of Opulence struggle with vexing relationships to the land, to one another, and to their own sexuality.

The last in the Afrolit Now series, The Sins of The Fathers by Zukiswa Wanner is narrated by a man dealing with immense grief. When he’s unable to heal from the trauma of loss, Akani begins to question his and his father’s role as a parent and, in doing so, awakens to the patterns between them. In trying to avoid being like his father as a husband and as a parent, did he inadvertently become exactly the man he wished not to be? And what secrets lie untold? As he grieves, he wonders whether he was ill-advised to keep secrets that may unwittingly hurt his family.

In vivid and visceral prose, Tibor Jones South Asia Prize-winning writer Avni Doshi tells a story, at once shocking and empathetic, about love and betrayal between a mother and a daughter. A journey into shifting memories, altering identities, and the subjective nature of truth, Burnt Sugar is a stunning and unforgettable debut.

She’s 43 years old…and starting over from scratch. How did this happen? She had it all together. A stable marriage of two decades. Two grown daughters. And now she and her husband, empty nesters, were moving to a beach house. Until he showed up late one night and tore their marriage apart. A secret life. A different woman. Another family. Left alone, she has to begin again. And then her estranged sister and mother get thrown into the mix. When she buys a house on a small South Carolina island, will she learn what life is really about?

In 1868, on the barren shores of post-war Outer Banks North Carolina, the once wealthy Sinclair family moves for the summer to one of the first cottages on the ocean side of the resort village of Nags Head. Seventeen-year-old Abigail is beautiful, book smart, but sheltered by her plantation life and hemmed in by her emotionally distant family. To make good use of time, she is encouraged by her family to teach her father's fishing guide, the good-natured but penniless Benjamin Whimble, how to read and write.

After 60 years of marriage and five daughters, Lynn "Lovey" White knows that all of us, from time to time, need to use our little white lies. Her granddaughter Annabelle, on the other hand, is as truthful as they come. She always does the right thing - that is until she dumps her hedge fund manager fiance and marries a musician she has known for three days. After all, her grandparents fell in love at first sight....

The historic houses in the seaside town of Beaufort, North Carolina, have held the secrets of their inhabitants for centuries. One of the most enduring refuses to be washed away by the tide: What happened to Rebecca and Townsend Saint James on that fateful night of their disappearance in 1976? Now, the granddaughter they never knew, Keaton Smith, is desperate for a fresh start. So when her mother needs someone to put her childhood home in Beaufort on the market, she jumps at the chance to head south.

On a bright June day in 1965, a dozen girls - classmates at a Blue Ridge women's college - launch a ramshackle raft on a trip down the Mississippi. Their journey, inspired by Huckleberry Finn, is duly reported in the Paducah, Kentucky newspaper. 35 years later, four of the "girls" reunite to cruise the river again. This time, it's on the luxury steamboat The Belle of Natchez. This time, when they reach New Orleans, they'll give the River the ashes of a fifth rafter: Margaret ("Baby") Ballou.

Sinister secrets hidden by the tranquil waters of an Ozarks lake. Can married amateur sleuths bait and capture a killer before the truth slips away? Kirkus Reviews—“A fine whodunit featuring a delightful cast whom readers will love—or love to hate.” After newlyweds Elizabeth and Jonas Trout arrive to settle her grandmother's estate, they quickly find themselves embroiled in a treacherous mystery when Elizabeth is implicated in the murder of the property manager. With mounting evidence and the Southern small-town sheriff convinced of her guilt, Elizabeth and Jonas must fish for clues...

Irish domestic worker Norah King's decision to ask her wealthy employer, Caroline Parker, for an elegant red coat that the Beacon Hill matriarch has marked for donation ignites a series of events that neither woman could have fathomed. The unlikely exchange will impact their respective daughters and families for generations to come, from the coat's original owner, marriage-minded collegian Cordelia Parker, to the determined and spirited King sisters of South Boston, Rosemary, Kay, and Rita.

Sharyn McCrumb is the New York Times best-selling author of the Ballad novels, which celebrate the rich history of Appalachia. An elegant saga set against the American Revolution, King' s Mountain features John Sevier and his legendary Carolina Overmountain Men, who find themselves defending their families and farms against the troops of a haughty British major.

Acclaimed romance author Katie Lane inspires listeners to believe in true love. When Faith Aldridge learns she has a twin sister, she treks to Bramble, Texas, to find her. But Bramble’s residents think Faith is her sister, Hope, and they take action to reunite Faith with Hope’s ex-flame, Slate. When the real Hope finally shows up, Faith pulls out all the stops to hold onto her newfound passion.

If Cotton Could Talk," is a civil war era historical fiction novel about 19th-century slave life in the South. You will be introduced to a cast of characters; Black mothers and fathers who are fearless, smart, and devoted to family and justice. Heroes and heroines whose leadership gave enslaved people hope. But before freedom comes, they must survive other slaves who prove to be untrustworthy. At the same time ruthless, hostile, hateful men are determined to keep the status quo. Pre-Civil War, 1850, enslaved people could sense that their lives were going to change. Slaves reasoned that they...

Joey Green has returned to Beaufort, South Carolina, with its palmettos and shrimp boats, to look after his ailing father, who is succumbing to dementia, while his overstressed mother takes a break. Marshall Green’s short-term memory has all but evaporated, but his oldest memories are more vivid than ever. His mind keeps slipping backward in time, retreating into growing up in Beaufort as a boy. At first, this seems like a blessing of sorts, but Joey grows increasingly anxious as his father’s hallucinatory arguments with figures from his youth begin to hint at deadly secrets.