Presents the adventures of a boy and a runaway slave as they travel down the Mississippi River on a raft.

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

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is at her superb best in this fun-loving, moving novel about what it means to be truly alive.

WINNER OF THE SOUTHERN BOOK PRIZE 

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it’s called, is anything but still....

Allison Troyer is of marriageable age and needs to learn how to manage an Amish household. Can a girl who feels as faceless, purposeless, and neglected as her tattered Amish doll, find her way among strangers? James Esh likes what he sees when Allison Troyer walks into the barn. Will anything keep this brash young Amish man from stealing her affections? Aaron Zook has vowed never to lose his heart to another. Yet when James makes advances on Allison,

...

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family's avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women's prison.

But young Adair finds that

...

A teenage fugitive—Youthful master of disguise Fawn Morrison comes to Hideaway seeking refuge. Now that her dangerous game has turned deadly, she must entrust her safety to strangers.
A doubting doctor—Karah Lee Fletcher relishes the challenges offered by Hideaway's new clinic, until an unsettling discovery shakes her confidence. Despite self-doubt, she reaches out to Fawn and finds unexpected grace.
A lonely Ranger—Their...

"Clara Sinclair has learned to live one lonely day at a time, surviving her husband's death in World War II and raising their young son alone. Now she's at a loss as to how to handle the defiant teenager he has become, even as she struggles to keep her family financially afloat. Drake McCoy lives for putting his drag racing skills to the test. One night in this quiet town is all he needs to win big and be on his way...until he meets Clara. Drawn...

"Alma DeGeer Dunahew, the mother of three young boys, works as the maid for a prominent citizen and his family in West Table, Missouri. Her husband is mostly absent, and, in 1929, her scandalous, beloved younger sister is one of the 42 killed in an explosion at the local dance hall. Who is to blame? Mobsters from St. Louis? The embittered local gypsies? The preacher who railed against the loose morals of the waltzing couples? Or could it have been...

When Jake Limberleg brings his traveling medicine show to a small Missouri town in 1913, thirteen-year-old Natalie senses that something is wrong and, after investigating, learns that her love of automata and other machines make her the only one who can set things right.