The South and stories mingle together like a hive and honeybees. I’ve only lived in the Lover’s state of Virginia for a little bit, but I’ve come to appreciate the conversations with strangers at the grocery store, smiles as sweet as salt water taffy, and the slow dance of lazy days and good weather.
Living here inspired my upcoming novel, Yellow Wife (Simon & Schuster), a harrowing story that follows an enslaved mulatto woman forced to barter love and freedom while living in the most infamous slave jail in Virginia. For me, writing a novel rooted in the South has awakened my thirst for stories that will tickle my read-through-the-night-fancy. Here are six books that will provide the right blend of Southern history, love and charm to your fall reading list.
Reviving the Hawthorne Sisters by Emily Carpenter
Reviving the Hawthorne Sisters by Emily Carpenter (Lake Union Publishing) follows Dove Jarrod, a renowned evangelist and faith healer. Only her granddaughter, Eve Candler, knows that Dove was a con artist. In the eight years since Dove’s death, Eve has maintained Dove’s charitable foundation — and her lies. But just as a documentary team wraps up a shoot about the miracle worker, Eve is assaulted by a vengeful stranger intent on exposing what could be Dove’s darkest secret: murder…
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi (Knopf). Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family’s loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief — a novel about faith, science, religion, love. (Read BookTrib’s review here.)
Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey
Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethewey (Ecco) is a chillingly personal and exquisitely wrought memoir of a daughter reckoning with the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of her former stepfather, and the moving, intimate story of a poet coming into her own in the wake of a tragedy.
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate (Ballantine Books) is the dramatic story of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post–Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives. Bestselling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away.
Perennials by Julie Cantrell
Perennials by Julie Cantrell (Thomas Nelson). Years ago, Lovey chose to leave her family and the South far behind. But now that she’s returned, she’s realizing things at home were not always what they seemed. Eva Sutherland — known to all as Lovey — grew up safe and secure in Oxford, Mississippi, surrounded by a rich literary history and her mother’s stunning flower gardens. But a shed fire, and the injuries it caused, changed everything. Her older sister, Bitsy, blamed Lovey for the irreparable damage. Bitsy became the homecoming queen and the perfect Southern belle who could do no wrong. All the while, Lovey served as the family scapegoat, always bearing the brunt when Bitsy threw blame her way. (Read the Tall Poppy review here.)
This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross Smith
This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross Smith (Grand Central Publishing) will be in stores February 2021. On a rainy October night in Kentucky, recently divorced therapist Tallie Clark is on her way home when she spots a man precariously standing on the edge of a bridge. Without a second thought, Tallie pulls over and jumps out of the car into the pouring rain. She convinces the man to join her for a cup of coffee, and he eventually agrees to come back to her house, where he finally, reluctantly, shares his first name: Emmett. This Close to Okay is an uplifting, powerful story of two strangers brought together by wild chance at the moment they needed it the most.
