It’s been over fifteen years since Kathryn Stockett wrote her blockbuster novel “The Help” which really surprises me. So when I learned she had written another historical novel, I knew I wanted to read it. It just came out just a month ago and I was lucky enough to get an ebook from the library. It is a whopping 656 pages and up until about the last 50 pages, I read every word. I was getting a little anxious about the ending, so I did my paragraph skimming for just a little bit. I read this book in three or four days, which for me is really something.

From Amazon:

Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.

Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable “big girls” at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.

Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she’s left behind. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister’s seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies.

Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose. When their fates—and Meg’s—converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives. But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women’s freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences.