From bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons comes a bittersweet and finely wrought story of friendship, family, and Charleston society. At twelve, Emily Parmenter knows alone all too well. Left mostly to herself after her beautiful young mother disappeared and her beloved older brother died, Emily is keenly aware of yearning and loss. Rather than be consumed by sadness, she has built a life around the faded plantation where her remote father and...

Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies...sensitive, sensible, self-contained Cecie...Ginger, the heiress, sexy, vibrant, richer than sin...and poor, hopeless, brilliant Fig-they came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus in the '60s. Four young women bound by rare, blinding, early friendship-they spend two idyllic spring breaks at Nag's Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weather-beaten...

Every summer, Thayer Wentworth, the daughter of a wealthy Middletown, Georgia family, attended Camp Greyledge on Burnt Mountain. It was there were she learned the facets of love and heartbreak with a boy named Nick Abrams. Years later, she marries Aengus, an Irish professor, and moves a few miles away from her childhood camp, much to the disapproval of her family. However, when Aengus spends a lot of time at the camp, Thayer realizes her husband might...

"Anne Rivers Siddons tells the beautiful, tragic, and redemptive story of a woman who searches for meaning after her husband dies"--Provided by publisher.

The year is 1966, a time of innocence, possibility, and freedom. And for Atlanta, the country, and one woman making her way in a changing world, nothing will be the same . . . After an airless childhood in Savannah, Smoky O'Donnell arrives in Atlanta, dazzled and chastened by this hectic young city on the rise. Her new job as a writer with the city's Downtown magazine introduces her to many unforgettable people and propels her into the center of momentous...

From childhood, Molly Bell Redwine was taught by her charismatic, domineering mother that "family is everything." But no one warned Molly that family can change unexpectedly. In rapid succession, her husband of more than twenty years abandons her for a younger woman, her mother dies, and her Atlanta clan scatters to the four winds. Molly is set adrift in a heartbeat. With her old world crumbling, Molly takes refuge with a friend on Martha's Vineyard,...

Anny Butler is a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changes when she meets and marries Lewis Aiken, an exuberant surgeon fifteen years older than Anny. When they marry, she finds her family-not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are one another's surrogate...

He would make her whole again. Leaving behind a disastrous marriage, Andy Calhoun moves to the small town of Pemberton, Georgia, "in search of banality." What she discovers, though, is not serenity, but Tom Dabney, a passionate and magical man. An exuberant poet who worships the wilderness surrounding Pemberton, Tom is everything Andy doesn't need in her life right now. But despite warnings from friends, Andy is soon deeply immersed in Tom's life...

Headstrong, exuberant, and independent, Lucy Bondurant is a devastating beauty who will never become the demure Southern lady her mother and society demand. Sheppard Gibbs Bondurant III, Lucy's older cousin, is too shy and bookish to become the classically suave and gregarious Southern gentleman his family expects. Growing up together in a sprawling home on Atlanta's Peachtree Road, these two will be united by fierce love and hate, and by rebellion...

A best-selling author spins one of the most breathtaking stories of her career: a Gothic saga of lust, greed, and betrayal. When beautiful, dirt-poor Ruth Yancey rises to become the mistress of Sparta, Georgia's finest mansion, she reveals a heart of pure evil. For three generations, she rules the mansion through cruel manipulation and insinuation, breaking hearts and shattering souls, until one courageous woman decides to match her madness.