The Secret Sense of Wildflower - Southern Historical Fiction, Best Book of 2012


Book Description

The story of Louisa May "Wildflower" McAllister whose life has been shaped around the recent death of her beloved father in a sawmill accident. While her mother hardens in her grief, Wildflower and her three sisters must cope with their loss themselves, as well as with the demands of daily survival.




Lily's Song


Book Description

"Wildflower" McAllister's daughter, Lily, now 14, struggles with her mother's reluctance to tell her who her father is. When a stranger appears on the family doorstep, drunk and evoking ghosts from the past, it threatens to break the close-knit McAllister family apart. Meanwhile, Wildflower has a deep secret of her own. When Lily discovers it by accident, it changes everything she thought she knew about her mother. The events that follow silence the singing she dreamed of sharing with the world. With her signature metaphors, Gabriel weaves a compelling tale that captures the resilience and strength of both mother and daughter, as secrets revealed test their strong bond and ultimately change their lives forever. Set in 1956 southern Appalachia.




I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This


Book Description

Twelve-year-old Marie is a leader among the popular black girls in Chauncey, Ohio, a prosperous black suburb. She isn't looking for a friend when Lena Bright, a white girl, appears in school. Yet they are drawn to each other because both have lost their mothers. And they know how to keep a secret. For Lena has a secret that is terrifying, and she's desperate to protect herself and her younger sister from their father. Marie must decide whether she can help Lena by keeping her secret... or by telling it.




Daisy's Fortune


Book Description

She must return to the place that twice brought her shame. She'll have one final chance to save someone else.Tennessee, 1982. Wildflower McAllister thought she'd put the past behind her. But when she learns her mother is dying, she digs deep and returns to the small mountain town that stole her innocence and cast her out. And she has no choice but to pull her thirteen-year-old granddaughter Daisy right back into the ghosts of her painful history.As her mother passes, Wildflower's grief turns to despair when Daisy's fortune is read, predicting a dark future and the return of sinister threats. With her granddaughter keeping a terrible secret, Wildflower's distress forces her to call upon the community that rejected her to prevent another tragedy from playing out in front of her eyes.Can Wildflower stop a harrowing legacy from spreading to another generation?Daisy's Fortune is the emotional conclusion to the Wildflower Trilogy. If you like strong women, generational tales, and the power of family and the land to heal, then you'll adore Susan Gabriel's compelling finale.Book 1: The Secret Sense of WildflowerBook 2: Lily's SongBook 3: Daisy's Fortune




Temple Secrets


Book Description

A town held together with secrets. A wealthy widow looking for an heir. One choice could shame high society into submission. Temple Secrets is a hilarious novel with a Southern gothic flair. If you like wisecracking humor, headstrong women, and twisty mysteries, then you'll love this compelling tale of an unconventional inheritance.




Wildflower Hill


Book Description

A compelling tale of two very different women whose lives are intertwined by fate, opportunity, love, family and secrets. From the class divisions of depression-era Glasgow, to the rolling pastures of a rural Tasmanian sheep farm. An unforgettable story of passion, love, secrets and loss.




Birds of Paradise: A Novel


Book Description

“A full-course meal, a rich, complex and memorable story that will leave you lingering gratefully at [Abu-Jaber’s] table.”—Ron Charles, Washington Post At thirteen, Felice Muir ran away from home to punish herself for some horrible thing she had done—leaving a hole in the hearts of her pastry-chef mother, her real estate attorney father, and her foodie-entrepreneurial brother. After five years of scrounging for food, drugs, and shelter on Miami Beach, Felice is now turning eighteen, and she and the family she left behind must reckon with the consequences of her actions—and make life-affirming choices about what matters to them most, now and in the future.




Trueluck Summer


Book Description

In Charleston, South Carolina, 1964, Ida Trueluck, her 12-year-old granddaughter, Trudy, and her friends, a white girl and a black boy, attempt the impossible: to take down the Confederate flag that flies atop the South Carolina State House. A captivating novel about courage and the risks and rewards of trying to make the world a better place.




Where Wildflowers Bloom (Sisters at Heart Book #1)


Book Description

The War Between the States stole a father and brother from Faith Lindberg-- as well as Royal Baxter, the man she wanted to marry. With only her grandfather left, she dreams of leaving Noble Springs, Missouri, and traveling west to Oregon to start a new life, away from the memories that haunt her. But first she must convince her grandfather to sell the family's mercantile and leave a town their family has called home for generations. When Royal Baxter suddenly returns to town, Faith allows herself to hope that her dreams might come true. Does he truly love her? Or could another man claim her heart? Will she find that following her dreams may not mean leaving home after all? The characters in Where Wildflowers Bloom jump off the page and into the reader's heart. Author Ann Shorey infuses her characters with the virtues and quirks that bring them fully alive as they search for contentment and love.




Bellman & Black


Book Description

Killing a bird with his slingshot as a boy, William Bellman grows up a wealthy family man unaware of how his act of childhood cruelty will have terrible consequences until a wrenching tragedy compels him to enter into a macabre bargain with a stranger in black.