Anna Lewis-Manning

The anticipated follow up to Molly Harper's My Bluegrass Baby, which followed Sadie Hawkins as she jockeyed for the director's position at the Kentucky Tourism Commission with a sophisticated and handsome challenger.

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand.

Mother of Pearl is populated by wonderfully rich and original characters. The paths of Even Grade, a black man who grew up an orphan, and Valuable Komer, a white girl who is the daughter of the town whore, cross through Joody Two Sun, a seer, who becomes Even's lover. Both Even and Valuable are seeking the family, love, and commitment they never had, and their search ultimately takes both of them to places they never dreamed they'd go.

Twenty-eight-year-old Even Grade is a Black man who was orphaned as a child. 15-year-old Valuable Korner is a White girl who might as well have been orphaned. Petal, Mississippi, circa 1956, seems an unlikely spot for these two to connect, but a friendship forged across race lines is just one of many miracles waiting to happen in this small Southern town.

In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate, and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Booklist calls White Doves "an epic filmed in tight focus, taking us from secession to Reconstruction at an intensely personal level."