Congratulations to Joshilyn Jackson, who's touring the Girlfriends Cyber Circuit with her gorgeous novel Between, Georgia . Joshilyn is Georgia Author of the Year, and the Between, Georgia audio edition (read by Joshilyn) won Publisher’s Weekly's Listen Up Award and made AudioFile’s Best of 2006 list. Between, Georgia nailed starred reviews in PW, Kirkus, and Booklist and was a #1 BookSense pick, making Jackson the first author in BookSense history to achieve #1 status in back-to-back years.And talk about buzz...
"One of this decade's most commendable novels. Every now and then a remarkable writer, following in the footsteps of great authors, comes along to reenergize American fiction. So it is with Joshilyn Jackson. ...overflows with gut-wrenching sadness and laugh-out-loud humor. Jackson's novel brilliantly explores abstractions - redemption, love and grace - through the most compelling characterizations to be found in contemporary fiction. Between, Georgia is an exemplary novel by a singular writer who is in full command of the art of story telling. Don't miss it!" (Bookpage)
And more buzz...
"Between, Georgia is a small miracle, and Nonny Frett is the most engaging woman who ever lived in the pages of a book. Joshilyn Jackson is an enormously talented writer." (New York Times bestselling author Anne Rivers Siddons)
And just in case you're not sitting there thinking "I gotta read this book", there's this tantalizing teaser from the PR department:
There's always been bad blood between the Fretts and the Crabtrees. After all, the Fretts practically own the tiny town of Between, Georgia, while the Crabtrees only rent space in its jail cells.
Stacia Frett is a deaf artist with a genetic condition that is causing her to slowly go blind. She's lost the love of her life, and when her vision goes, she'll lose her career as well. She's asking God why He keeps her breathing in and out, until the night fifteen year old Hazel Crabtree shows up on her doorstep brandishing a stomach swollen with a pregnancy she'd hidden for nine months. Stacia thinks Hazel's unwanted baby might be God's answer, and so the Fretts decide to steal it...
Thirty years later, Nonny Frett is a successful interpreter living in Athens, Georgia. She understands the meanings of "rock" and "hard place" better than any woman ever born. She's got two mothers, "one deaf-blind and the other four baby steps from flat crazy." She's got two men; Her husband is easing out the back door and her best friend is laying siege to her heart in her front yard. She has a job that holds her in the city, and she's addicted to a little girl who's stuck deep in the country. And she has two families; The Fretts, who stole her and raised her right, and the Crabtrees, who lost her and can't forget that they've been done wrong.
In Between, Georgia, population 90, the feud that began before Nonny was born is escalating, and a random act of violence will set the torch to a thirty-year old stash of highly flammable secrets. This might be just what the town needs, if only Nonny wasn't sitting in the middle of it...
Fine, Joshilyn. Be that way. We won't hate you because you're beautiful.
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