Five Miles South of Peculiar

Zusatztext “…this small-town southern story has a big heart and refreshing characters.” —Booklist Informationen zum Autor Angela Hunt  is the bestselling author of more than 100 books, including  The Tale of Three Trees ,  Don’t Bet Against Me ,  The Note,  and  The Nativity Story . Her nonfiction book  Don’t Bet Against Me ,   written with Deanna Favre, spent several weeks on the  New York Times  bestseller list. Angela and her husband make their home in Florida with their dogs. Klappentext Three sisters with opposing temperaments have a fiery reunion at the spacious! Florida family estate in an unexpected journey of the heart in the latest novel from bestselling author Hunt. Leseprobe Five Miles South Of Peculiar Chapter One Residents of Jackson County, Florida, held their breath the morning of July 3, 1968, when old man Caldwell took to his bed complaining of a monstrous headache. As the clock struck two, he sat up, sneezed, wheezed, and lay back down, expiring before his head hit the pillow. The doc pronounced him at 2:03, then placed a call to the county seat. Someone in the county clerk’s office reportedly clicked a stopwatch and set it in the safe. County officials and city planners nodded to one another with greedy smiles, knowing that Charles Caldwell’s precious estate, known to all as Sycamores, would officially become county property at 2:03 p.m. on July 3, 2018. As to what purpose the property would serve, no one dared offer an opinion. But they could spend the next fifty years dreaming . . . Darlene Caldwell Young, who was only six when her grandpa died, would later take quiet pride in the fact that her family home was not built on the sweat of slaves or the commerce of cotton, but on the courage, cunning, and risk necessary to garner a fortune during Prohibition. Though a current visitor to Sycamores would find alcohol only in bottles of vanilla, rum, and peppermint extract, Darlene considered her grandfather a genius. He not only managed to shelter Sycamores from taxes, but also devised the charitable gift annuity that provided a monthly income for any immediate Caldwell descendant residing on the property. That income allowed life at Sycamores to continue as it always had, with a sedate and stately elegance. “Chase” Caldwell’s progeny were more than willing to let the rest of the world rush and worry and gobble meals behind a steering wheel. At Sycamores, and in Peculiar, the nearest town, life was meant to be savored. Ready to take a load off her feet one Friday morning, Darlene sank into a rocker on her front porch. She pulled a tattered Japanese fan from her apron pocket and snapped it open, then frantically thrashed at the hot air. The porch lay in deep shade, but beyond it simmered a sun-spangled garden where roses nodded their heavy heads and sunflowers followed the blazing torch in the sky. Next to the sunflowers, Nolie was staking the top-heavy gladiolas while her dogs, Lucy and Ricky, romped across the grass edging the mile-long driveway. Darlene frowned. The grass looked to be ankle deep, but ever since Daddy’s accident Nolie didn’t like to ride the tractor mower. Darlene would cut the lawn herself, but in this heat, she’d have to do it either before sunup or after sundown, and she didn’t want to risk running over a possum or armadillo in the vague half-light. “Lawn needs mowin’,” she called, trusting that Nolie could hear her above the barking dogs. “Do you think we could get Henry to find somebody to come out and take care of it?” Nolie looked up, her eyes shadowed by the wide brim of her...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Angela Hunt, Angela Elwell Hunt
• Editore: Simon & Schuster USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 05.06.2012
• EAN: 9781439182048
• ISBN: 978-1-4391-8204-8
• Pagine: 320
• Categoria: Narrativa > Romanzi