Brimming with atmosphere and edgy suspense, The Rebel Wife presents a young widow trying to survive in the violent world of Reconstruction Alabama, where the old gentility masks a continuing war fueled by hatred, treachery, and still-powerful secrets.
Allow me to introduce you to Taylor M. Polites and The Rebel Wife:
In this novel, set in Reconstruction Alabama, Augusta “Gus” Branson is a young widow whose quest for freedom turns into a race for her life when her husband Eli dies of a swift and horrifying fever and a large package of money – her only inheritance and means of survival – goes missing. Gus begins to wake to the realities that surround her: the social stigma her marriage has stained her with, what her husband did to earn his fortune, the shifting and very dangerous political and social landscape that is being destroyed by violence between the Klan and the Freeman’s Bureau, and the deadly fever that is spreading like wildfire. Nothing is as she believed, and everyone she trusts is hiding something from her.
Readers will find tattered fragments of Gone with the Wind, and meet completely subverted versions of the white Southern Gentleman, the good Mammy, the conniving Scalawag, and the defenseless Southern Belle.
Author Taylor M. Polites was born in Huntsville, Alabama, the basis for the town of Albion in this book, and has been researching this novel since he was a teen. He became obsessed with the Southern experience during the Civil War – reading diaries, memoirs, and letters from that time – and ultimately imagined and mapped out the town of Albion, much like William Faulkner created his Yoknapatawpha County.
The publisher, Simon & Schuster, has generously offered THREE copies of The Rebel Wife to be shared with readers of She Is Too Fond of Books. To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below, indicating one novel (or work of nonfiction) set in the South, that you have enjoyed. This post will be open for entries until midnight ET on Thursday, January 26, 2012. Winners will be selected at random; giveaway open to US/Canada mailing addresses only.
Naturally, GWTW is an all-time favorite, and I still remember a Civil War novel I read as a teenager over 50 years ago – Yankee Stranger by Elswyth Thane. More recently I’ve read and enjoyed the North and South trilogy by John Jakes.
Thanks for the giveaway. I love Civil War novels.
So many to choose from! Obviously GWTW will always be a favorite. Some other favorites include Eugenia Price’s Georgia Trilogy and A Diary from Dixie, which is a non-fiction account of the Civil War.
Gone With the Wind must of course be mentioned, but also Faulkner’s Light in August. Thanks for the giveaway!
Many thanks for this lovely giveaway. A novel that I enjoyed was The Widow of the South by robert Hicks. Memorable.
I loved Fried Green Tomatoes and the classic Gone With the Wind. Thanks for the giveaway!
Margaret
singitm(at)hotmail(dot)com
How can I not mention Gone With the Wind?
I love also Fried Green Tomatoes and Driving Miss Daisy.
I loved Gone With the Wind. Please enter me in contest. Tore923@aol.com
Gone with the wind no.1
i loved The Help and Mudbound.
How about “The Prince of Tides”? I love Pat Conroy.
I have loved GWTW since I was 11 years old. Also, I was thrilled to see Thane’s Yankee Stranger; I own the whole series from Revolutionary War thru WWII>
Gone with the Wind was one of my first favorites!!
nicole seitz’s novels
A book lost from view is House Divided by Ben Ames Williams.
How about “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot, use of her (Henrietta’s) cells (called HELA) after her death, unknown to her family, to great advantage to health fields and pharmaceutical industry? And obviously “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett.
Gone With the Wind- I’ve read it 4 times now!
“The Secret Life of Bees”, anyone?
The Help (Stockett)…The Secret Life of Bees (Kidd)…
Mark Childress’ “Crazy in Alabama” is fun and offbeat. There are so many good southern writers currently and in the past. The best of all, in my opinion, is Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
Great giveaway! I think Pat Conroy is my favorite southern author. I have liked most of his books but THE PRINCE OF TIDES is my favorite.