Bøker av Susan Gregg Gilmore

Young Leonard Bush buries his lost leg and saves his whole East Tennessee town in this winsome and miracle-making novel.When twelve-year-old Leonard Bush loses his leg in a freak accident, he decides to give his leg a proper burial in the hilltop cemetery of his East Tennessee town. This event somehow sets off a chain of miraculous and catastrophic events—upending the lives of Leonard’s rigidly God-fearing mother, June; his deeply conflicted father, Emmett; and his best friend, Azalea, and her mother, Rose, who is also the town prostitute. While the local Baptist minister passes judgment on events and promises dire consequences, the people of this small community on the banks of Big Sugar move together toward awakening.Susan Gilmore’s love of storytelling flows naturally from her Tennessee roots. She’s the daughter of a revival preacher’s son, brought up on the land and streams that populate this novel that is, as Appalachian novelist Lee Smith says, a “homespun Pilgrim’s Progress.”

A deeply touching Southern story filled with struggle and hope.Emmalee Bullard and her new baby are on their own. Or so she thinks, until Leona Lane, the older seamstress who sat by her side at the local shirt factory where both women worked as collar makers, insists Emmalee come and live with her. But just as Emmalee prepares to escape her hardscrabble life in Red Chert Holler, Leona dies tragically. Grief-stricken, Emmalee decides she'll make Leona's burying dress. There are plenty of people who don't think the unmarried Emmalee should design a dress for a Christian woman--or care for a child on her own--but with every stitch, Emmalee struggles to do what is right for her daughter and to honor Leona the best way she can, finding unlikely support among an indomitable group of seamstresses and the town's funeral director. In a moving tale exploring Southern spirit and camaraderie among working women, a young mother will compel a town to become a community.Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader's guide and bonus content

Sometimes you have to return to the place where you began, to arrive at the place where you belong. It's the early 1970s. The town of Ringgold, Georgia, has a population of 1,923, one traffic light, one Dairy Queen, and one Catherine Grace Cline. The daughter of Ringgold's third-generation Baptist preacher, Catherine Grace is quick-witted, more than a little stubborn, and dying to escape her small-town life. Every Saturday afternoon, she sits at the Dairy Queen, eating Dilly Bars and plotting her getaway to Atlanta. And when, with the help of a family friend, the dream becomes a reality, she immediately packs her bags, leaving her family and the boy she loves to claim the life she's always imagined. But before things have even begun to get off the ground in Atlanta, tragedy brings Catherine Grace back home. As a series of extraordinary events alter her perspective--and sweeping changes come to Ringgold itself--Catherine Grace begins to wonder if her place in the world may actually be, against all odds, right where she began. Intelligent, charming, and utterly readable, Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen marks the debut of a talented new literary voice.

Nobody in Nashville has a bigger name to live up to than Bezellia Grove. As a Grove, she belongs to one of city's most prominent families and is expected to embrace her position in high society. That means speaking fluent French, dancing at cotillions with boys from other important families, and mastering the art of the perfect smile. Also looming large is her given name Bezellia, which has been passed down for generations to the first daughter born to the eldest Grove. The others in the long line of Bezellias shortened the ancestral name to Bee, Zee or Zell. But Bezellia refuses all nicknames and dreams that one day she, too, will be remembered for her original namesake's courage and passion. Though she leads a life of privilege, being a Grove is far from easy. Her mother hides her drinking but her alcoholism is hardly a secret. Her father, who spends long hours at work, is distant and inaccessible. For as long as she can remember, she's been raised by Maizelle, the nanny, and Nathaniel, the handyman. To Bezellia, Maizelle and Nathaniel are cherished family members. To her parents, they will never be more than servants. Relationships are complicated in 1960s Nashville, where society remains neatly ordered by class, status and skin color. Black servants aren't supposed to eat at the same table as their white employers. Black boys aren't supposed to make conversation with white girls. And they certainly aren't supposed to fall in love. When Bezellia has a clandestine affair with Nathaniel's son, Samuel, their romance is met with anger and fear from both families. In a time and place where rebelling against the rules carries a steep price, Bezellia Grove must decide which of her names will be the one that defines her.