Southern State

Patricia Campbell's life has never felt smaller. Her ambitious husband is too busy to give her a goodbye kiss in the morning, her kids have their own lives, her senile mother-in-law needs constant care, and she's always a step behind on thank-you notes and her endless list of chores. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a close-knit group of Charleston women united by their love of true crime and paperback fiction. At these meetings they're as likely to talk about the Manson family as they are marriage, motherhood, and neighborhood gossip.

After more than twenty years away from the law, Joe Hennessy is forced back into the courtroom. Trying to save his vineyard after years of drought, Hennessy returns to practice in Charleston, South Carolina–the city he walked away from after the murder of his ten-year-old son. When one of South Carolina's most powerful men is charged with possessing stolen artwork, Hennessy steps forward to defend him. But as Hennessy digs into the evidence, as he navigates the truth, he finds that the criminal charges are only the start of their problems…

"A Southern View of the Invasion of the Southern States and War of 1861-65" is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the Civil War, offering a compelling counterpoint to traditional historical interpretations. Ashe's work is essential listening for anyone seeking a nuanced and insightful perspective on this pivotal chapter in American history.

There's a reason Emmeline Frothingham left her hometown of Creek Water, Missouri, as soon as humanly possible. That reason is small-minded, judgmental people. After graduating from college, Emmie gets her dream job in New York City. As the head buyer at Silver Spoons - a high-end boutique - and single girl about town, her life is ideal. That is, until the night of The Event, her company's annual awards ball at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Facing the repercussions of her wild night, Emmie is forced to go home to work in her family's business.

Visit the Palmetto State! Learn about South Carolina's history, geography, weather, people, and more in this book that's all about our eighth state.

William Wells Brown's Clotel (1853), the first novel written by an African American, was published in London while Brown was still legally regarded as property within the borders of the United States. The novel was inspired by the story of Thomas Jefferson's purported sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. Brown fictionalizes the stories of Jefferson's mistress, daughters, and granddaughters, all of whom are slaves in order to demythologize the dominant U.S. cultural narrative celebrating Jefferson's America as a nation of freedom and equality for all.

The author of this book, Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, has, perhaps, achieved more renown in recent years than at any time since the publication of his literary efforts. Those familiar with the film Gettysburg will recall the unusual figure of a British Guards officer attired (inaccurately) in his full dress Guardsman's scarlet uniform among the ranks of the Virginians at the famous and pivotal battle.

From celebrated New York Times best-selling author and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Rick Bragg comes a poignant and wryly funny collection of essays on life in the South. Keenly observed and written with his insightful and deadpan sense of humor, Bragg explores enduring Southern truths about home, place, spirit, table, and the regions' varied geographies, including his native Alabama, Cajun country, and the Gulf Coast.

Visit the Mount Rushmore State! Learn about South Dakota's history, geography, weather, people, and more in this book that's all about our 40th state.

My family's roots run deep, and my responsibilities are clear. My family and Rhodes Hotels, my family business. As a father first, I've always put my daughter above everything, living in a carefully maintained world close to my ex-wife, ensuring peace. I never expected to fall in love again and find the kind of passion I had with Aurora. I thought it would be easy, but when I introduced her to my daughter, it shattered the delicate balance of my life, forcing me to make regrettable choices that hurt the only woman I ever loved.

Fifteen years after the events of the Natchez Burning trilogy, Penn Cage is alone. Nearly all his loved ones are dead, his old allies gone, and he carries a mortal secret that separates him from the world. But Penn’s exile comes to an end when a brawl at a Mississippi rap festival triggers a bloody mass shooting—one that nearly takes the life of his daughter Annie.

One hot, sticky summer in Bledsoe, Georgia, twelve-year-old Kay Whitaker stumbles across a stilt house in a neighboring marsh and upon Andy Webber, a boy about her age. He and his father have recently moved back to Georgia from California, and rumors of the suspicious drowning death of Andy’s mother years earlier have chased them there and back. Kay is fascinated and enamored with Andy, and she doesn’t listen when her father tells her to stay away from the Webbers.

In 1532, the 54-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers, to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpa had defeated his brother, Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed with Atahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca.

Magnolia, South Carolina, 1980: Austin Foster is barely a teenager when her mama dies giving birth to twins, leaving her to pick up the pieces while holding her six siblings together and doing her best to stop her daddy from retreating into his personal darkness.

Recently separated Amelia Saxton, a dedicated journalist, never expected that uncovering the biggest story of her career would become deeply personal. But when she discovers that a cluster of embryos belonging to her childhood friend Parker and his late wife Greer have been deemed “abandoned”, she’s put in the unenviable position of telling Parker - and dredging up old wounds in the process.

Magnolia "Mack" Bishop is staring down the barrel at single motherhood--thanks to an unsolicited personal picture her husband texted another woman that quickly went viral among every mom group in town. But she's determined to not let it distract her from the professional victory she's inches away from: securing Charleston's prestigious Historic Preservation Design Fellowship, the apple of every local designer's eye.

South takes place in a USA ravaged by civil war. It's been 30 years since the first wind-borne viruses ended the war between North and South - and still they keep coming. Every wind brings a new and terrifying way to die. The few survivors live in constant fear, hiding from the wind - and from each other. In the harsh Southern expanse, brothers Garrett and Dyce Jackson are on the run from brutal law enforcers. They meet Vida, a lone traveler on a secret quest.

Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina - a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else" - has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, listeners meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity".

From internationally best-selling author and “rising star of Southern fiction” (Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times best-selling author) Kristy Woodson Harvey comes the third novel in her Peachtree Bluff series, in which a secret threatens the tight-knit bond between a trio of sisters and their mother.

Winfred Rembert grew up in a family of Georgia field laborers and joined the civil rights movement as a teenager. He was arrested after fleeing a demonstration, later survived a near-lynching at the hands of law enforcement, and spent the next seven years on chain gangs. During that time he met the undaunted Patsy, who would become his wife. Years later, at the age of 51 and with Patsy’s encouragement, he started drawing and painting scenes from his youth using leather tooling skills he learned in prison.