Family Life Southern

Late September 1957. Henry and Effie, very young newlyweds from Georgia, arrive in Cape May, New Jersey, for their honeymoon only to find the town is deserted. Feeling shy of each other and isolated, they decide to cut the trip short. But before they leave, they meet a glamorous set of people who sweep them up into their drama. The empty beach town becomes their playground, and as they sneak into abandoned summer homes, go sailing, walk naked under the stars, make love, and drink a great deal of gin, Henry and Effie slip from innocence into betrayal, with irrevocable consequences.

"Sometimes life makes decisions for you. They’re just not the decisions you would have made for yourself." Stalker. Killer. Mohawk-wearing boy racers? Trouble seems to be following Olivia Logan. When she’s forced to leave Auckland and move to Twizel, Olivia thinks her stalker problems have been left behind. But the small southern town of Twizel possesses its own threats. The people are strange. The community tight knit. The farmers… Well, let’s just say they leave other men for dead. Handsome. Damaged. Got a thing for damsels in distress? Matt Drake is one seriously messed up cop. ...

Cooper Gosling has just answered 500 questoins, and her results indicate that she's abnormal enough for polar life. Cooper's not so sure that's an achievement, but she's got nothing left to lose, so she accepts a one-year assignment to the National Science Foundation's Artists and Writers Program in Antarctica. There, she encounters the Polies, a group of misfits that only have in common their conviction that they don't belong anywhere else. But when a fringe scientist arrives, he brings them to the center of a global controversy.

The theme of trust, betrayed or fulfilled, runs through this collection of short stories: Parents lead children into peril, husbands abandon wives, wives manipulate husbands, and time undermines all. Love pangs, a favorite subject of the author, take on a new urgency as earthquakes, illnesses, lost wallets, and deaths of distant friends besiege his aging heroes and heroines.

The Lovers Pentacle is a romance book inspired by tarot cards. The Titular lovers are the best friends Kain and Carina. The two have been friends since High School. Overtime, their relationship degraded into toxic codependency. Whenever Carina gets dumped, she bullies her best friend into dating her. As soon as she finds herself someone better, she leaves him. After getting dumped so many times, Carina is finally ready to settle for Kain, but unsurprisingly, Kain refused to marry her. In order to change her destiny, Carina visits a psychic to get a tarot card reading, and a love spell that ...

The last thing playboy PI Kaden Greer expects to catch is a case of amnesia. Brandy Carter mysteriously landed in my small town with a baby in tow. She’s young and scared and beautiful. And now my client. She can’t remember anything. All she knows is that she has to take care of little Archie. My professionalism is tested as I am drawn to her like a moth to a flame. When a crime boss abducts her and the baby, my instinct to protect them goes into overdrive. Calling on my siblings, we make a plan to rescue them. Will we be in time to save them? The bigger question is, can I give up my ...

They had very little in common. Their lives couldn’t be more different. The paths they’d chosen veered in completely opposite direction of the other in more ways than could be counted. Yet each knew the ultimate and painful cost of loving. They both knew that would never change. But they share more than an undeniable common bond…one that brings them together to form an even stronger friendship when nothing else could. And it is that bond that brings them together in the effort to do all that they can for a young girl who like them struggles to find her way in the midst of overwhelming...

Tomato sandwiches. Tobacco barns. Cooking collards. A shopping list left on a desk for 40 years at a deceased grandparent's house. Traditions that die as families age. What it means to "be country." Pig pickins'. Splitting firewood. Minor league baseball. Redneck snow days. Places that you can't go back again—sometimes good, sometimes not. All of these nostalgic and not-so-nostalgic stories from a rural upbringing are colliding with the New(er) South and are at risk of being lost from the culture. A Southern Season: Rural Stories is a collection of short stories about the food, lifestyle,...

Twelve-year-old Ana wants nothing more than to escape the future set for her and her classmates in her small mining village. Boys her age are beginning to leave school to become silver miners and girls her age are destined to one day be the wives of miners. But when her often ill 11-year-old brother is forced by their demanding father to start work in the mines, Ana gives up her dreams of school to volunteer in his place. The world of silver mining though is dark and dangerous and the men who work there don't want a girl in their way.

Mary Frances could not understand why her father, over the years, had let alcohol take control of his life. He would come home drunk making Mary Frances and her sisters' run for protection. Growing up in the 1930's was hard enough without having this problem to deal with. What was the mystery behind Father's drinking? Was he trying to forget his past? While walking to school Mary Frances caught the glimpse of a boy plowing in a field. The young man, Clint, had also seen her. Their love for one another quickly grew with each passing year. One late rainy night, Mary Frances crawled out her ...

Rhea's neighborhood is fading away—the mom-and-pop shops of her childhood forced out to make space for an artisanal kombucha brewery here, a hot yoga studio there. And everywhere, the feeling that this place is no longer meant for her. Because while their little corner of South L.A. isn't perfect, to Rhea and her two best friends, it's something even more important—it's home. And it's worth protecting. But as more white people flock to their latest edgy, urban paradise, more of Rhea's friends and family are pushed out. Until Rhea decides it's time to push back.

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.

Jess Kirkman’s mother is dying of congestive heart failure, and he has come home to be at her bedside. Charged with getting family affairs in order, he faces the daunting task of sorting out the secret workshop that his father left behind when he died 10 years ago. As he investigates his findings—a map littered with the names of strange women and a strange invention of stovepipe and ceramic—Jess discovers an intriguing side of his father.

A young black woman, Jamila Mosely, is killed, but slain even worse by media coverage that refuses to let her be an innocent victim. Per usual, they air her most questionable photo, and hint at sketchy associations to portray her as a victim to her own devices. Detective Sawyer takes it personal. Sawyer becomes obsessed with uncovering the truth and restoring dignity to the name of a young lady not much older than her daughter Star. And yet there is still the unresolved issues with Chosen, Travis, Duke, and even her struggling marriage to contend; Sawyer has a full plate. Under the ...

When Lola's teacher asks the students to draw a picture of where their families immigrated from, all the kids are excited. Except Lola. She can't remember The Island - she left when she was just a baby. But with the help of her family and friends, and their memories - joyous, fantastical, heartbreaking, and frightening - Lola's imagination takes her on an extraordinary journey back to The Island. As she draws closer to the heart of her family's story, Lola comes to understand the truth of her abuela's words: "Just because you don't remember a place doesn't mean it's not in you."

The semi-fictional Isla Ajaja lies just south of the Texas gulf coast --- and just south of normal: TALKS WITH DEAD AUNTS - In this novella, teenage Jaci Jenson comes of age the hard way in a 1970s beach town. The only thing worse than living with her alcoholic mother, overbearing aunt and houseful of ancestral ghosts, is living without them. TALES FROM MISS ELLA'S HOME JAIL - Thirty-something Ella Schmidt presides over this story-collection-within-a-story collection. She evolves from town tattletale to strong leader--- of her very own, mostly legal, women's correctional facility: * The ...

There were days when he just wanted to sit by a lake and hear the quiet…maybe have a stiff drink. This was one of those days.Jonas Brownstein learned early in life that some bonds are forged quickly…and never to be broken. He learned as well that other relationships were unable to withstand the slightest test against its fragile endurance. In taking his new job at the request of a long-time friend and trusted mentor, he knows that both lessons will be valuable as he steps into the role thtat he has been asked to fill. He believes in second chances and that everyone deserves them. He ...

This profound portrait of family life takes listeners inside the hearts and minds of members of the Quick family, whose raw-edged emotions are stirred up by a visit home. An inexplicably violent death and painful confrontations leave every family member forever changed. Rich in insight and psychological entanglements, A Southern Family is a masterful tale of anger and pain, of love and hatred, and ultimately of healing, understanding, and wisdom.

In 1989, Jodi McCarty is 17 years old when she's sentenced to life in prison. When she's released 18 years later, she finds herself at a Greyhound bus stop, reeling from the shock of unexpected freedom but determined to chart a better course for herself. Not yet able to return to her lost home in the Appalachian Mountains, she heads south in search of someone she left behind, as a way of finally making amends. There, she meets and falls in love with Miranda, a troubled young mother living in a motel room with her children. Together they head toward what they hope will be a fresh start.

Sylvie Snow knows the pressures of expectations: a woman is supposed to work hard, but never be tired; age gracefully, but always be beautiful; fix the family problems, but always be carefree. Sylvie does the grocery shopping, the laundry, the scheduling, the schlepping, and the PTA-ing, while planning her son’s Bar Mitzvah and cheerfully tending her husband, Paul, who’s been lying on the sofa with a broken ankle.