Southern Grit

With a four-legged companion and no food in the pantry, Grant Walton faces an uphill battle. His wife is still missing; downtown is a smoldering crater; and radiation is killing more people every day. Torn between searching for his wife and gearing up for what's sure to come, Grant is forced to put more than his morals to the test. Leah Walton escaped a nuclear bomb that flattened her hospital and vaporized her friends. Now she's racing to find her husband miles away. She'll have to rely on the kindness of strangers to survive and hope none of them kill her in the process.

With a credible threat to the US and a plane stuck on the tarmac, Grant Walton is 30 seconds from full-blown panic mode. He's the only one in the airport who knows the truth. When the power goes out, he can't waste another second. It's the beginning of the end and every man for himself. Leah Walton is wrapping up a 12-hour shift as a nurse in the heart of the city. When the power goes out, the hospital operates on crisis mode. She can't stop to breathe, let alone check her messages. When she finally listens to her husband's frantic calls, she's faced with an impossible choice: leave or die trying.

Before she started hosting dinners for Indiana University's Sociology Department, Robbie never imagined scholarly meetings could be so hostile. It's all due to Professor Charles Stilton, who seems to thrive on heated exchanges with his peers and underlings, and tensions flare one night after he disrespects Robbie's friend, graduate student Lou. So when Robbie and Lou go snowshoeing the next morning and find the contentious academic frozen under ice, police suspect that Lou might have killed him after their public tiff.

After risking everything, Grant and Leah Walton are finally reunited. But it's no happy ending. As the reality of the situation dawns on their neighbors, the Waltons find themselves the subject of more than idle curiosity. Not everyone can be trusted. People they counted as friends now look at them with suspicion and fear. Faced with neighbors determined to take all they have, Grant and Leah prepare to leave. But strangers have other plans.

An escape - that's exactly what Birdie Devaine needs when witches around the world publicly announce their existence. Instead of performing for the sold-out crowd at her world-famous magic show in Vegas, Birdie runs away from the dazzling lights to her hometown in Mississippi. She thinks she has it all planned out - keeping busy with renovating an old beautiful house and eventually fading away from the spotlight. But the house has its secrets, including the haunted cemetery that Birdie is now responsible for. It doesn't help when her nosy neighbor catches on to Birdie's big secret....

A funny and feel-good book about friendship and trust between six Southern women in the small town of Monroe, North Carolina. Sadie decided to buy a huge mansion and turn it into a bed and breakfast. Her friends were shocked when she told them what she had done. They thought her actions were odd but decided to help her with her new journey. Cooper has been keeping a secret from Tilly. Will it destroy their loving marriage? Strange things are happening in the bed and breakfast. Can it be explained, or is it their imaginations? Will these new problems affect their friendship, or will they ...

In Cry Me A River, T.R. Pearson writes of murder and its consequences in a small southern town. By book's end we of course know who done it and why, but the greatest pleasure lies in Pearson's own investigations into carnal relations, sexual jealousy, men and women, the mean, the low-down, and the dead. That he manages to do so with such winsome humor and unflagging originality is a tribute to his craft. Cry Me A River is T.R. Pearson at his finest.

Family and friends are the center of life in the South, and kitchens the center of Southern homes, so there is no better way to celebrate Southern traditions than a book on entertaining. From the heartfelt love in Grandma's dumplings to the stomping good fun at a hoedown, Southern entertaining is special. This audiobook will help everyone to be as gracious, warm, and entertaining as Deborah Ford herself. She can't help sharing...it's the Southern way.

From Publishers Weekly In his third installment (after A Short History of a Small Place and Off for the Sweet Hereafter of hilarious adventures narrated by young Louis Benfield of Neely, N.C., Pearson again spins a rollicking yarn with somber undertones and reveals himself to be a shrewd social commentator. Essentially the chronicle of the pursuit of a stolen Chevrolet that ends with the murder of a black man, the kernel of the story is embroidered on, digressed from, told and retold with deepening significance each time. Everything that goes on in the real worldincluding the sordid and the...

This delightful collection of short stories from acclaimed writer Susan Gabriel (The Secret Sense of Wildflower, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 and an Amazon number one best seller) is rich in humor as well as mystery and meaning. Whether white or black, living or dead, down home country or upscale urban, Gabriel's characters are quirky, poignant, and deep.

Shelby Roswell is a history professor on the fast track to tenure until her new book is crushed in a review by the famous historian, Ransom Fielding. She struggles to regain her momentum only to discover that Fielding has taken a visiting professorship at her college. The place that was once a refuge from the poverty of her past is now a battlefield of Civil War proportions. Together, Shelby and Ransom learn that home is never very far away, and when you least expect it, love arrives.

Dive deep into "Grits: Harnessing the Fire and Passion of Perseverance," a narrative as rich, warm, and enticing as a bowl of creamy Southern grits on a crisp morning. This is no ordinary book, my friend. Rather, it's a soulful journey that'll captivate your senses, delivering tales of unwavering tenacity that are as nourishing to the spirit as that beloved dish is to the Southern soul. Imagine curling up on your porch with tales that weave through the days of unexpected heroes—those unsung underdogs who, against all odds, found the grit to rise above and leave their mark. Their stories ...

A corrupt police detective enjoying semi-retirement in Tidewater Virginia stumbles onto an unsolved homicide. Given his nature, he’d be happy to leave it unsolved, but a few of his friends and neighbors have other ideas and steer him to a chance at redemption.

A mishap while tree-poaching leaves beer-swilling Virginia lumberjack Donnie Huff well and truly dead -- until some furious pounding on his body snatches him back from the other side with no ill effects to speak of. His devout mother-in-law, Opal Criner, is convinced his recovery is nothing less than a miracle -- and a potentially profitable one at that. With a few of Opal's valuable lessons in preacherly manners, Donnie is soon ready to spread Jesus' divine word . . . though he's not quite sure he was listening when the Savior said it.

Meandering from comic set pieces to hilarious digressions, Call and Response perfectly captures the peculiar lilts and rhythms of the South -- and spins a magical tale of love and all its manifold complications. The novel centers on Nestor Tudor, a middle-aged widower who is overfond of Ancient Age and Old Gold filters. TR Pearson interweaves the story of Nestor's late-blooming, and ultimately unrequited, affection for Mary Alice Celestine Lefler with parallel stories of true love and broken hearts, young love and cheating hearts, and every other variety of courtship imaginable. ...

I love to cook. When I was married before, we would host fancy dinner parties at our Manhattan penthouse. Copper pots and the latest tools for cooking adorned our kitchen The fine wine and chilled vodka flowed. It was blast. Now, I still like to cook but the fact is with a busy schedule and a son, the nature of life is different and it's more important that recipes are easy AND taste well. "Grits Y'All" reflects the ease I like in cooking with my new Southern home. I hope you enjoy it.