Southern Historical Fiction

1969. When Mattie Taylor’s twin brother was killed in Vietnam, she lost her best friend and the only person who really understood her. Now, news that her mother is dying sends Mattie back home, despite blaming her father for Mark’s death. Mama’s last wish is that Mattie would read some old letters stored in a trunk, from people Mattie doesn’t even know. Mama insists they hold the answers Mattie is looking for.

With mysterious serial murders putting peaceful Lexington, Alabama, on edge, Jessie and Hubert Wiggins’ steadfast calm and devotion to each other reassures everyone that faith will see them through. But Jessie and Hubert have paid a terrible hidden cost to maintain their devout facade and respectable standing. Nothing can allay the guilt they feel—or stop the growing distrust between them.

In a town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, Rachel Smith has found a new life tending a lush apple orchard. She’s safe within its grove. If her dreams are haunted by memories of her violent husband, that pain is soothed by fresh mountain air and apples that taste as sweet as honey. But Rachel wasn’t meant to live in the shadows. The orchard drew her to Morgan’s Gap to fulfill a purpose and a tight-knit community of wisewomen who honor the old mountain traditions are ready to teach her. A world of magic awaits Rachel, one filled with new friendships and possibly new love

Four Southern women are at a turning point in history...and in their own hearts.

When Cornelius Allen gives his daughter Clarissa’s hand in marriage, he presents her with a wedding gift: the young slave she grew up with, Sarah. Sarah is also Allen’s daughter and Clarissa’s sister, a product of his longtime relationship with his house slave, Emmeline. When Clarissa’s husband suspects that their newborn son is illegitimate, Clarissa and Sarah are sent back to her parents, Cornelius and Theodora, in shame, setting in motion a series of events that will destroy this once-powerful family.

It's 1932, and Sullivan Harris is on the run. He promised the people of Kline, West Virginia, that he would find them water, but now he's failed and disappeared with their cash. Although he's determined to stay a step ahead of pursuers - like Jeremiah Weber - his resources are running low. Gainey Floyd is suspicious of Sulley's claim to be a dowser when he appears in town but reconsiders after he finds water. Rather, it's Sulley who grows uneasy when his success makes folks wonder if he can find more than water - like forgotten items or missing people.

Ira Levinson is in trouble. At 91 years old, in poor health, and alone in the world, he finds himself stranded on an isolated embankment after a car crash. Suffering multiple injuries, he struggles to retain consciousness until a blurry image materializes and comes into focus beside him: His beloved wife, Ruth, who passed away nine years ago. Urging him to hang on, she forces him to remain alert by recounting the stories of their lifetime together - how they met, the precious paintings they collected together, the dark days of WWII and its effect on them and their families.

Present Day: Julia Baxter’s wedding veil, bequeathed to her great-grandmother by a mysterious woman on a train in the 1930s, has passed through generations of her family as a symbol of a happy marriage. But on the morning of her wedding day, something tells her that even the veil’s good luck isn’t enough to make her marriage last forever. Overwhelmed, she escapes to the Virgin Islands to clear her head.

Acclimating to a whole new world, Ellie meets a lonely but intriguing Cajun fisherman named Raphe who introduces her to the legendary white alligator that haunts these waters. Raphe and Ellie have barely found their way to each other when a huge bounty is offered for the elusive gator, bringing about a shocking turn of events that will test their love and their will to right a terrible wrong.

Catherine Edilean Harcourt has no lack of suitors at home in Virginia, waiting to fulfill her dream of marriage and family. But Cay’s adventurous spirit, fostered by growing up with her three brothers, is piqued while visiting her godfather in South Carolina. Bedridden with a broken leg, he asks Cay to fill in for him on an urgent task: on her way to a fancy dress ball, she must deliver a packed horse to an old friend’s son - who also happens to be an escaped convict charged with murdering his wife!

Después de derrotar al ejército cristiano, las tropas almohades se abren paso a sangre y fuego arrasando todo lo que encuentran en su camino. Diego de Malagón, el humilde hijo de un posadero, es testigo horrorizado del asesinato de su padre y del secuestro de sus hermanas. A duras penas consigue huir a lomos de su inseparable yegua Sabba y alcanzar la ciudad de Toledo donde conoce a Galib, un veterinario mudéjar.

It is the summer of 1948 when a handsome, charismatic stranger, Charlie Beale, recently back from the war in Europe, shows up in the town of Brownsburg, a sleepy village in the Valley of Virginia. All he has with him are two suitcases. Finding work at the local butcher shop, Charlie befriends the owner and his family. And it is through the shop that Charlie gradually meets all the townsfolk, including Boaty Glass, Brownsburg's wealthiest citizen, and most significantly, Boaty's beautiful teenage bride, Sylvan.

The Altamaha River, Georgia's "Little Amazon", is one of the last truly wild places in America. Crossed by roads only five times in its 137 miles, the blackwater river is home to 1,000-year-old virgin cypresses, direct descendants of 18th-century Highland warriors, and a staggering array of rare and endangered species. The Altamaha is even rumored to harbor its own river monster, as well as traces of the oldest European fort in North America.

Dis 1933 - ses jaar voor die Tweede Wêreldoorlog. Kate Woodroffe was nog die heeltyd in watte toegedraai en soos ’n porseleinpoppie opgepas totdat sy besef dat daar ’n ander wêreld bestaan as die herehuis in Parktown Ridge. Haar studierigting bring haar in aanraking met die verwoestende armoede van Vrededorp, skaars tien kilometer van waar sy woon, en sy besluit om ’n verskil te maak in die stukkende wêreld om haar.

In 1850s South Carolina, ladies with ambition and a penchant for wearing trousers are rare indeed. But that’s Charlotte Whitney all over. Not only does Charlie yearn to resurrect her late father’s newspaper, she wants to be its editor. That position, however, has been handed to Richmond newspaperman Adam Chase. Undeterred, Charlie convinces Adam to teach her the journalism trade. In doing so, she teaches him how to open his heart.

On a Mississippi morning in 1859, Emily Matthews begs her father to save a slave, Nathan, about to be auctioned away from his family. Judge Matthews is an abolitionist who runs an illegal school for his slaves, hoping to eventually set them free. One, a woman named Ginny, has become Emily's companion and often her conscience - and understands all too well the hazards an educated slave must face. Yet even Ginny could not predict the tangled, tragic string of events set in motion as Nathan's family arrives at the Matthews farm.

For fourteen-year-old Leah Payne, life in her beloved coastal Carolina town is worlds away from the harsh realities of the day. Loyal to her lumberjack father, she knows only of the familiarity of her small community, the magic of the natural world, and the creative intuition that prompts her to march to the beat of her own drum. But when an accident takes her father's life, leaving her an orphan, Leah finds herself cast into a family of strangers whose welcoming façade hides a terrible secret.

The Kingston Trio’s folk song “Tom Dooley” tells the story of the murder of Laura Foster, a simple country girl involved with returning Confederate soldier Tom Dula. But Tom was also engaged in a passionate affair with his childhood sweetheart, the beautiful - and married - Ann Melton. One May morning in 1866, Laura Foster stole her father’s horse and left home, telling a neighbor that she was eloping to Tennessee. Three months later, her body was found in a shallow grave only a few hundred yards from where she was last seen.

Talk of impending war is a steady drumbeat throughout North Carolina, though Joetta McBride pays it little heed. She and her husband, Ennis, have built a modest but happy life for themselves, raising two sons, fifteen-year-old Henry, and eleven-year-old Robert, on their small subsistence farm. They do not support the Confederacy's position on slavery, but Joetta considers her family to be neutral, believing this is simply not their fight. Her opinion is not favored by many in their community, including Joetta's own father-in-law, Rudean.

Southern Mozambique, 1894. Sergeant Germano de Melo is posted to the village of Nkokolani to oversee the Portuguese conquest of territory claimed by Ngungunyane, the last of the leaders of the state of Gaza, the second-largest empire led by an African. Ngungunyane has raised an army to resist colonial rule and with his warriors is slowly approaching the border village. Desperate for help, Germano enlists Imani, a 15-year-old girl, to act as his interpreter. She belongs to the VaChopi tribe, one of the few who dared side with the Portuguese.