Family Life Southern

From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry, The Idea of Love asks, "Can two people come together for all the wrong reasons and still make it right?" Ella's life has been completely upended. She's young, beautiful, and deeply in love--until her husband dies in a tragic sailing...

An outstanding primary source of Southern life during the Yankee blockade, the book is a memoir of daily life on a Southern plantation during the Civil War. The narrative provides details on a wide spectrum of issues of historical interest.

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....

In Beneath The Willow Tree, the eighth book in the South Carolina Sunsets series, listeners are introduced to two women who have inherited a beachfront home in Seagrove. These two women were raised by the same foster mother but despised each other. The twist is that the foster mother's will states that the two women must work together and use the home for a good cause to inherit it. They must then decide whether to keep the home and live there together or sell it and split the proceeds.

A fight for love and freedom in a harsh land...will the stakes prove too high? From the emerald hills of Ireland to a wild colonial land comes an epic story of love, brotherhood and the fight for liberty. 1851: After the death of her father, young Eve Richards is destitute. Her struggle to survive sees her deported in chains to the colony of New South Wales, penniless and alone. But here in this strange new world fortune smiles on the spirited, clever Eve in the shape of a respectable job offer that will lead to a quiet, secure life.

After their father dies in a tragic accident, heiresses Evelyn, Georgia and Olivia Belle are left with a massive hole in their finances. With the world's media and National Crime Agency looking on, their family home, cars, and other assets are sold at auction, leaving the sisters penniless, homeless, and jobless. Shunned by their celebrity friends, the sisters must learn to fend for themselves for the first time in their lives.

In this riveting continuation of the Brisco family saga, brothers Dub and Tim strive to persevere against their early 1900s post-slavery beginnings—clashing with their history of family trauma and their different coping mechanisms for living in a world that doesn’t accept them. While Dub becomes a respected coal miner and finds prosperity for his family, Tim continues a slow descent into a fog of psychosis, alcoholism, and perpetual joblessness—forced to live an isolated existence on Dub’s property despite his desire for deeper connection.

In this dark, southern noir, a writer drifting through life escapes his failed marriage and back to his family home in the Ozarks where he finds himself in the middle of a blood feud between his own family and the brutal Dolly clan. “My imagination is always skulking about in a wrong place.”...

Acclaimed novelist Anne Rivers Siddons's new novel is a stunning tale of love and loss. For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly--happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as...

Set in 1940s Appalachia, The Secret Sense of Wildflower tells the story of Louisa May "Wildflower" McAllister whose life has been shaped around the recent death of her beloved father in a sawmill accident. While her mother hardens in her grief, Wildflower and her three sisters must cope with their loss themselves, as well as with the demands of daily survival. Despite these hardships, Wildflower has a resilience that is forged with humor, a love of the land, and an endless supply of questions to God.

Avalee Preston tries to silence the demons from her past and takes a chance at love with Ty Jackson, a man 12 years her junior and the brother to her long-dead fiance. As if she needs another complication in her life, his parents resent her, and he has grown children. Is love really enough for them to build a life together or is she confusing it with a fairy tale? Just what is love anyway? Maybe love was never intended for her after all. Ty deserves better.

Gussie, Ina Mae, and Blanche have been best friends for more than sixty years. From their humble beginnings of founding the Sunshine Club when they were girls to becoming the matchmaking queens of Newton, Texas, these three were inseparable. When Blanche passes away, Gussie and Ina Mae feel the best way to honor their dearly departed is with a shot of whiskey, some good music, and making a match for Blanche’s niece, Sissy.

All her life, Cricket's mama has told her stories about a secret room painted by a mysterious artist. Now Mama's run off, and Cricket thinks the room might be the answer to getting her to come back. If it exists. And if she can find it. Cricket's only clue is a coin from a grown-over ghost town in the woods. So with her daddy's old guidebook and a coat full of snacks stolen from the Cash 'n' Carry, Cricket runs away to find the room.

The gang from the Gull Island Writers Retreat take on the case of a man who is currently doing time for the murder of a woman he swears he did not kill. After speaking to the man, Alex determines that he is most likely telling the truth, so he enlists the help of the gang to prove it. As they work together to sort fact from fiction, they realize there may be a lot more going on than they originally thought.

Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.

The gravy train hasn’t stopped in the hollers of western Virginia for more than 30 years when Stony Shelor starts his junior year at Jubal Early High. Class divides and racism are still the hardened norms as the Eisenhower years draw to a close. Violence lies coiled under the calm surface, ready to strike at any time.

Through events small and large, thirteen-year-old Harold Stevens grows up during a pivotal summer in the red-dirt backcountry of West Texas. With his friend C.K. Crow, the black field hand who works for Harold’s father, he shoots deer and quail, fishes for catfish, mends fences, grows and learns about marijuana, and tests his emerging manhood against bullies, bulls, and the irresistible charms of his horse-riding older cousin.