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Lucille Howard is getting on in years, but she stays busy. Thanks to the inspiration of her dearly departed friend Arthur Truluv, she has begun to teach baking classes, sharing the secrets to her delicious classic Southern yellow cake, the perfect pinwheel cookies, and other sweet essentials. Her classes have become so popular that she's hired Iris, a new resident of Mason, Missouri, as an assistant. Iris doesn't know how to bake but she needs to...

Lordor Nordstrom created, in his wisdom, not only a lively town and a prosperous legacy for himself but also a beautiful final resting place for his family, friends, and neighbors yet to come. "Resting place" turns out to be a bit of a misnomer, however. Odd things begin to happen, and it starts the whole town talking. With her wild imagination, great storytelling, and deep understanding of folly and the human heart, the beloved Fannie Flagg tells...

"From Percival Everett-a recipient of the NBCC Lifetime Achievement Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, and numerous PEN awards-comes James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby...

The story of first love featuring Katie, 13. When her father, a widowed army colonel, moves to another town, Katie meets Jimmy, 23, a garage attendant, and she falls in love with him. Unfortunately Jimmy is married and a father, and though he likes Katie very much he is not about to leave his family. A tale of platonic love, narrated by Katie. By the author of The Pull of the Moon.

From acclaimed novelist Jonis Agee, whom The New York Times Book Review called “a gifted poet of that dark lushness in the heart of the American landscape,” The River Wife is a sweeping, panoramic story that ranges from the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 through the Civil War to the bootlegging days of the 1930s.
When the earthquake brings Annie Lark’s Missouri house down on top of her, she finds herself pinned under...

"Kurt Argento, an ex-Detroit street cop who can't let injustice go-and who has the fighting skills to back up his idealism. If he sees a young girl being dragged into an alley, he's going to rescue her and cause some damage. When he does just that in a small corrupt Missouri town, he's brutally beaten and thrown into a maximum-security prison. Julie Wakefield, a grad student who happens to be the governor's daughter, is about to take a tour of the...

"[A] minor classic, one that packs in vastly more life than many more serious novels do . . . A novel that tastes life at first hand; it's a palate cleanser for jaded appetites." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"A spare, unflinching, generous and lusty masterpiece of adventure writing." —Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

A treasured cult classic following

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In the aftermath of a tornado that has devastated her hometown of Elizabeth, Missouri, sixteen-year-old Jersey Cameron struggles to overcome her grief as she is sent to live with her only surviving relatives.

"McCown County assistant prosecutor Elsie Arnold is prepping an assault case when a girl is found beaten and bloodied at a roadside no-tell motel. Elsie tries to convince the teen to reveal who attacked her, but Mandy is too scared--and stubborn--to cooperate ... and then she disappears. Elsie's positive a predator is targeting the Ozark hills, yet the authorities refuse to believe their small town could be plagued by sex trafficking. Then middle...

Back in Elmwood Springs, Missouri the experiences of a high-spirited octogenarian inspire a town to ask the question "Why are we here"?