Book picks similar to
Right as Rain by Bev Marshall
fiction
the-south
women--identity
southern-fiction
Crows Over a Wheatfield
Paula Sharp - 1996
Returning to the rural landscape of her youth, Melanie befriends the flamboyant Mildred Steck, a woman who leads an insurrectionist movement and creates an underground railroad for mothers and children whom the courts and child custody laws have failed to protect from domestic violence. "Crows Over a Wheatfield" is a triumphant fusion of the personal and political -- a controversial, suspenseful story written with rare beauty and insight.
Mrs. Westerby Changes Course
Elizabeth Cadell - 1967
But when she agrees to drive Mrs. Stratton to her estate in the Basses-Pyrenées, she suddenly realizes she is in for much more than a pleasant motor trip.Mrs. Stratton, a successful authoress for Gail's firm, is a charming and poised woman. But when confronted by her late husband's sister, the enigmatic Mrs. Westerby, the charm and poise quickly disolve, leaving an unmistakable mark of fear.
All Summer Long
Dorothea Benton Frank - 2016
Dorothea Benton Frank s magical stories take us deep into the heart of her beloved Carolina Lowcountry. In her novels, this lush landscape comes alive in all its vibrancy and color. She ignites all of our senses with her vivid descriptions of landscape and atmosphere. In her novels you hear the ocean washing the shore on different islands so profoundly that you can nearly hear the sea gulls squawking, too. This is a story of people whose lives are changing a southern gentleman returning home to lead a more peaceful life and his talented New York wife who is not quite sure she is ready to make the transition. They are moving north to south, fast pace versus slow pace, downsizing. And while they are doing this, they are getting glimpses into other people s lives over the course of a summer, holidays that will amuse, shock and transform them. This irresistible story is home to captivating characters as funny, complicated, and real as our best friends husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, friends and family who wrestle with the complexities, pain, and joys familiar to us all. Finally, we ll come to recognize the face of love, the kind that deepens and endures but only because one woman makes a tremendous leap of faith. That leap changes them all.
Princess Bari
Hwang Sok-yong - 2007
Abandoned hours after her birth, she is eventually rescued by her grandmother. The old woman names the child Bari, after a legend telling of a forsaken princess who undertakes a quest for an elixir that will bring peace to the souls of the dead. As a young woman, frail, brave Bari escapes North Korea and takes refuge in China before embarking on a journey across the ocean in the hold of a cargo ship, seeking a better life. She lands in London, where she finds work as a masseuse. Paid to soothe her clients' aching bodies, she discovers that she can ease their more subtle agonies as well, having inherited her beloved grandmother's uncanny ability to read the pain and fears of others. Bari makes her home amongst other immigrants living clandestinely. She finds love in unlikely places, but also suffers a series of misfortunes that push her to the limits of sanity. Yet she has come too far to give in to despair.
All Over But the Shoutin'
Rick Bragg - 1997
It is the story of a violent, war-haunted, alcoholic father and a strong-willed, loving mother who struggled to protect her three sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance that had tainted her own life. It is the story of the life Bragg was able to carve out for himself on the strength of his mother's encouragement and belief.
The Last Days of Thunder Child
C.A. Powell - 2009
H.M.S. Thunder Child steams towards her glorious destiny in this 'War of the Worlds' pastiche! The War of the Worlds contains a small section on the Thunder Child battleship that attacks three tripods to save a paddle steamer. This story takes place a few days before the event and leads up to the final dramatic moment. The clever build-up leads to this final battle of ironclad v three Martian tripods. The story moves between the crew of the HMS Thunder Child at sea, and Mister Stanley, the man from the War Office. He is moving across the land to various semaphore stations. He is linked to the ship because he delivered the mission orders before the story starts. If you have read War of the Worlds and enjoyed it, you will like this story too.
A Tangled Mercy
Joy Jordan-Lake - 2017
Haunted by unanswered questions and her own uncertain future, she flees to Charleston, South Carolina, the place where her parents met, convinced it holds the key to understanding her fractured family and saving her career in academia. Kate is determined to unearth groundbreaking information on a failed 1822 slave revolt—the subject of her mother’s own research.Nearly two centuries earlier, Tom Russell, a gifted blacksmith and slave, grappled with a terrible choice: arm the uprising spearheaded by members of the fiercely independent African Methodist Episcopal Church or keep his own neck out of the noose and protect the woman he loves.Kate’s attempts to discover what drove her mother’s dangerous obsession with Charleston’s tumultuous history are derailed by a horrific massacre in the very same landmark church. In the unimaginable aftermath, Kate discovers a family she never knew existed as the city unites with a powerful message of hope and forgiveness for the world.
Midnight at the Blackbird Café
Heather Webber - 2019
It is here that Anna Kate has returned to bury her beloved Granny Zee, owner of the Blackbird Café.It was supposed to be a quick trip to close the café and settle her grandmother’s estate, but despite her best intentions to avoid forming ties or even getting to know her father’s side of the family, Anna Kate finds herself inexplicably drawn to the quirky Southern town her mother ran away from so many years ago, and the mysterious blackbird pie everybody can’t stop talking about.As the truth about her past slowly becomes clear, Anna Kate will need to decide if this lone blackbird will finally be able to take her broken wings and fly.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Sun Will Shine Tomorrow
Maureen Reynolds - 2008
Rosie is having a difficult pregnancy, while Johnny has fallen and fractured his skull on a trip to Orkney with the Home Guard. Meanwhile, Ann Neill is looking forward to meeting Greg again when he gets a much-needed break from his work at Bletchley Park, but she soon realizes that they are drifting apart. When the war finally ends, Danny Ryan does not return, although they think they see him on a cinema newsreel one day...and when Granddad becomes ill they are in crisis once again.
Absalom's Daughters
Suzanne Feldman - 2016
Illiterate and white, Judith falls for “colored music” and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father’s inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what’s rightly theirs.In an old junk car, with a frying pan, a ham, and a few dollars hidden in a shoe, they set off through the American Deep South of the 1950s, a bewitchingly beautiful landscape as well as one bedeviled by racial strife and violence. Suzanne Feldman's Absalom’s Daughters combines the buddy movie, the coming-of-age tale, and a dash of magical realism to enthrall and move us with an unforgettable, illuminating novel.
Imogene in New Orleans
Hunter Murphy - 2014
The boys take Imogene to New Orleans with their devilishly handsome English bulldog Goose, hoping to visit friends and attend a second line parade, but moments after arriving in the French Quarter, they find their friend Glenway Gilbert murdered in his art gallery. Immediately, Imogene and the boys run into a temperamental and ethically-challenged lieutenant who appears hell-bent on neglecting the crime, compelling them to seek answers themselves. As they delve into Glenway Gilbert's murder, Imogene and the boys realize the deceased artist was surrounded by suspicious friends and lovers. With Goose the bulldog by their side, Jackson and Billy seek answers among old friends and new enemies, while Imogene follows her own ideas on the case. But the sooner they solve the murder, the sooner they can get back to catching beads and eating pralines.
Gone are the Leaves
Anne Donovan - 2014
Feilamort has one of the finest voices in the land. It is a gift he believes will protect him...Deirdre has lived in the castle all her short life. Apprentice to her mother, she embroiders the robes for one of Scotland's finest families. She can capture, with just a few delicate stitches, the ripeness of a bramble or the glint of bronze on a fallen leaf. But with her mother pushing her to choose between a man she does not love and a closed world of prayer and solitude, Deirdre must decide for herself what her life will become. When the time comes for Feilamort to make an awful decision, his choice catapults himself and Deirdre head-first into adulthood. As the two friends learn more about Feilamort's forgotten childhood, it becomes clear that someone close is intent on keeping it hidden. Full of wonder and intrigue, and told with the grace and charm for which Anne Donovan is so beloved, Gone Are the Leaves is the enchanting story of one boy's lost past and his uncertain future.
Homesick
Guy Vanderhaeghe - 1989
But this is an uneasy reunion. Fiercely independent, Vera has been on her own since running away at nineteen – first to the army, and then to Toronto. Now, for the sake of her young son, she must swallow her pride and return home after seventeen years. As the story gradually unfolds, the past confronts the present in unexpected ways as the silence surrounding Vera’s brother is finally shattered and the truth behind Vera’s long absence revealed. With its tenderness, humour, and vivid evocation of character and place, Homesick confirms Guy Vanderhaeghe’s reputation as one of Canada’s most engaging and accomplished storytellers.From the Hardcover edition.
Handling Sin
Michael Malone - 1986
Left behind is a mysterious list of seven outrageous tasks that Raleigh must perform in order to rescue his father and his inheritance. And so Raleigh and fat Mingo Sheffield (his irrepressibly loyal friend) set off on an uproarious contemporary treasure hunt through a landscape of unforgettable characters, falling into adventures worthy of Tom Jones and Huck Finn. A moving parable of human love and redemption, Handling Sin is Michael Malone's comic masterpiece.
River Jordan
Augusta Trobaugh - 2004
Set in a small town well below the Mason-Dixon line, River Jordan features an improbable friendship among three people who come to depend on one another like family. Jordan, a girl with an adventurous imagination, is hungry for warmth and companionship, since she gets no more than scolding from her strict mother and stepfather. When Jordan’s step-grandmother, Miss Amylee, needs a live-in nurse, the family’s housekeeper suggests her sister, Pansy—newly saved and released from prison—for the job. Pansy, Jordan, and Miss Amylee form an unlikely trio, and through small and large triumphs, each recovers a part of herself that was lost.