A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet...

Comfort Snowberger is well acquainted with death since her family runs the funeral parlor in their small southern town, but even so the ten-year-old is unprepared for the series of heart-wrenching events that begins on the first day of Easter vacation with the sudden death of her beloved great-uncle Edisto.

A dynamic backwoods lawyer batters his way into the governor's mansion, where he uses his unprincipled charm to become a brutal dictator.

When tragedy strikes, Jasmine Houston must uproot her family from the Northern mill town of Lowell and take over her family's Southern plantation, The Willows. But upon her arrival, her antislavery positions cause strife between Jasmine and her neighbors and relatives. Tensions continue to rise until an explosive act - the burning of The Willows - causes Jasmine and her husband to flee north. But lives of the slaves they have promised to protect hand...

Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love...

"An unpretentious, finely-crafted novel that will linger with the readers like the last strains of a favorite hymn. It is more enjoyable than a pitcher full of sweet tea and one of Mattie's home-cooked dinners."--The Atlanta Journal & Constitution She had as much business keeping a stray dog as she had walking across Egypt--which not so incidentally is the title of her favorite hymn. She's Mattie Rigsbee, an independent, strong-minded senior citizen,...

Nonny Frett understands the meaning of "between a rock and a hard place." She's got two mothers, "one deaf-blind and the other four baby steps from flat crazy." She's got two men: her husband, easing out the back door; and her best friend, laying siege to her heart in her front yard. She has a job that holds her in the city, and she's addicted to a little girl stuck deep in the country. And she has two families: the Fretts, who stole her and raised...

In Uncle Tom's Cabin , Harriet Beecher Stowe created America's first black literary hero as well as the nation's antecedent protest novel. The novel's vast influence on attitudes towards African American slavery was considered an incitation towards the American Civil War; conjointly, its powerful anti-slavery message resonated with readers around the world at its time of publication. With unashamed sentimentality and expressions of faith, Harriet...

No one writes about the South like Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg (All Over But the Shoutin). Once again, he lends his voice to the working people of the deep South, and tells the story of a memorable figure in a singular time-a man on a lost stretch of dirt road along the Alabama-Georgia border. The Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and author of All Over But the Shoutin' continues his personal history of the Deep South with an evocation of his...

New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell creates suspense and emotional intensity with her classic Midnight in Ruby Bayou, a riveting romantic thriller in her popular four-book series featuring the remarkable Donovan family. A recipient of the Romance Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award, Lowell delivers a treasure of a story that seamlessly blends passion and peril as a beautiful artist and a dashing adventurer join forces on a...