Southern Fiction Family

Ya'll, let me tell you my story!Glad you could find your way here, and I welcome you to the Sellers Plantation here in the deep south of Mobile, Alabama. I'm anxious to get started with my story tellin,' so, I'm sharin' a little bout the story that I be tellin' to ya'll down below. When I wuz born, I be given the name Gertrude Ida Rollins, but as I be growin' folks just be callin' me Ms. Gertie. I wuz born in Mobile, Alabama in the year eighteen and eighty-eight. Yes, that be a long time ago for most of ya'll, but I thinks it be good to be learnin' bout the history that be comin' before you...

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....

When his grandfather dies, Jay travels south with his family to the property they’ve inherited, a once flourishing farm that has fallen into disrepair. The trees are diseased, the fields parched from months of drought. Jay’s father, Jack, sends him out to work the land, or whatever land is left. Over the course of these hot, dense days, Jay finds himself drawn to Chuan, the son of the farm’s manager, different from him in every way except for one.

Bo is running out of time. Yet time is one of the few things he’s got left. These days, his quiet existence is broken up only by daily visits from his home care team. Fortunately, he still has his beloved elkhound Sixten to keep him company … though now his son, with whom Bo has had a rocky relationship, insists upon taking the dog away, claiming that Bo has grown too old to properly care for him. The threat of losing Sixten stirs up a whirlwind of emotion, leading Bo to take stock of his life, his relationships, and the imperfect way he’s expressed his love over the years.

What do a runaway bride, a free spirit, and a corporate exec have in common? Besides all being down on their luck, Lainie, Jodi, and Becky are Lizzie Cornell's granddaughters. Upon inheriting their grandmother's home and family bait shop, the three cousins return to Catfish, Texas, grieving Lizzie's passing and hoping to find the fresh start they all need.

Some legacies are carved in stone. Others are soaked in oil, blood, and regret. Spanning five generations of the Chiswell family—from 1845 to the modern day—The Gospel According to Texas is a haunting, literary saga of land, sin, and redemption. When Elias Chiswell abandons everything to chase a new life on the Texas frontier, he believes he’s outrunning his past. But the land he claims has a voice—and a memory. Told in part by Texas itself, this Southern Gothic novel weaves journal entries, confessions, and mythic narration into a sweeping story of faith, failure, and family legacy...

Joanna Gordon has been out and proud for years, but when her popular radio evangelist father remarries and decides to move all three of them from Atlanta to the more conservative Rome, Georgia, he asks Jo to do the impossible: to lie low for the rest of her senior year. And Jo reluctantly agrees. Although it is (mostly) much easier for Jo to fit in as a straight girl, things get complicated when she meets Mary Carlson, the oh-so-tempting sister of her new friend at school. But Jo couldn't possibly think of breaking her promise to her dad.

A mountain girl in the early 1900’s copes with a marriage arranged by her dad. Her story is titled from an old saying “I own my land, heaven-high and hell-deep.” “Your pa gave his consent for us to marry,” he said the words as though it was a simple matter. It wasn’t a romantic proposal of love and devotion. It wasn’t a proposal at all. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I tried again. “I don’t know your name,” I managed to say as I felt my chest constrict. There was a pain in me that started at my toes and went to the roots of my hair. Dad had come up with a ...

Since Bailey Rae Rigby’s adoptive aunt Winnie passed, Bent Oak, South Carolina, doesn’t have much of a hold on her anymore. So it seems. Bailey Rae aims to settle the small estate and, armed with her aunt’s inspiring personal cookbook, buy a food truck with an ocean view in Myrtle Beach. Everything goes awry when a distraught young mother arrives in town clutching a copy of that same cookbook. Embedded inside is a code that promises a safe place in Bent Oak for desperate women on the run. For Bailey Rae it opens up a world of questions.

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.

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?

Her next-door neighbor has predicted that Annabelle is destined to live her life as an old maid. Not true, Annabelle declares after hearing this from her neighbor’s son. She’s only forty-two and is just beginning a new life after caring for her invalid mother for years. Yearning for a social life and determined to prove her neighbor wrong, she signs up for a ballroom dancing class where she meets not one, but two eligible bachelors, both vying for her attention. Luke is the new interim CEO at the local hospital, and Jake is a country music star hiding out in Park Place from the ...

Based on a remarkable true story. Winter, 1969. Since she was a little girl, Catarina learned not to ask for much. Born to a family of corn farmers in rural south Brazil, she was happiest when she was surrounded by sprawling fields and burly, familial farmhands—until her family was driven out of the land they had worked diligently for years, and Catarina was sent to work for a wealthy family in São Paolo. Only ten years old, Catarina becomes a housemaid—and the lifeline of her family. Far from everyone and everything she’d ever known, she discovers the shocking gap between her life ...

All it takes is a little bit of magic and a whole lot of love to break a family curse. Willow Rhodes is just passing through—until her car breaks down on a quiet country road that turns out to be Rhett Ward’s driveway. The house is crumbling. The town is full of secrets. And the man who helps her is too handsome, too steady, and just haunted enough to make her wonder if she’s really meant to leave. From the second he lays eyes on her, Rhett’s already imagining a future—with her name on the mailbox and a baby in their arms. Too bad the Wards are cursed. And for them, true love ...

A week before your wedding is no time for your ex to ride back into town, stirring up trouble. But that’s exactly the predicament Darla McAdams finds herself in. With practically the entire town of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, in attendance, the last place she wants to be is at her grandparents’ 60th wedding anniversary party with the whole family, her fiancé and her old flame all in the same room.

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.

Kathryn Tucker Windham begins this montage of stories with the sounds of summer and ends with a joyful Christmas memory. The mixture of tales, from the mouth-watering description of good Southern food to the story of a governor more familiar with Tom Sawyer than Tom Jefferson, comes together to evoke the image of a happy childhood.

Historical Fiction, Southern Gothic, and Mother-Daughter Relationship SOUTHERN ANTEBELLUM LAWS WERE BLIND TO HER DAUGHTER. BUT A MOTHER'S LOVE SAW EVERYTHING. WHAT WOULD YOU DO TO SAVE YOUR CHILD? "A poignant and chilling drama with an intriguing twist...The author deftly employs character development and narrative complexities to produce a sturdy indictment of the era (1860s) institutionalized subjugation of women..." Kirkus Review Inspired by Kate Chopin's classic short story, Desiree's Baby, the novel Desiree's Daughter tells a gripping story of love, rebellion, hard-earned freedom, and ...

Agatha O’Malley has become a recluse in the home that should be holding warm and wonderful memories. Up until her husband’s death, she led a happy and social life as the wife of a wealthy physician in the small town of Park Place, South Carolina. But now that he’s dead, she’s not only grieving for him, she’s furious with him over the mysterious disappearance of the stocks, bonds and money he told her he’d put aside for their retirement. What is she to do when there’s barely enough money in their joint checking account to survive, and how will she pay property taxes and keep up...

Southern historical fiction novel of drama and intrigue set on the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina. Excerpt from Chapter Nine: She hid in the woods all night long. Didn’t even come out to milk the goat or feed her mother’s chickens. The goat was starting to bleat to be milked by the next morning, but she was too afraid to take a chance on being out in the open long enough to milk her. By the time the sun started going down, she gathered enough determination to slip close enough to the cabin to see through the open door. There was enough light left in ...