Briefly Noted

“Jessica Fletcher knows that creativity must be nurtured. So when a young lady from Cabot Cove shows promise as a singer and songwriter, Jessica and a local citizens committee send Cyndi on a scholarship trip to Nashville, Tennessee, where she can benefit from professional instruction. Only weeks later, Cabot Cove is shocked to hear of the cold-blooded murder of a brash country music publisher—by the young talent Cyndi! And as Cyndi’s mother begs Jessica to help her daughter, Jess heads to the country music capital of the world to help the wayward starlet.”

“In Francine Howard’s stunning debut, Page from a Tennessee Journal, rural Tennessee of 1913 remains an unforgiving place for two couples—one black, the other white—who stumble against the rigid boundaries separating their worlds. When white farmer Alexander McNaughton falters into forbidden love with Annalaura Welles he discovers that he has much more to fear than the wrath of her returning gun-toting husband. Alexander’s wife—flinty and pragmatic Eula Mae—wages her own battle against the stoicism demanded of white women of her time and social standing. Former sharecropper John Welles, flush with cash from his year’s sojourn working the poker tables in ‘the second best colored whorehouse in all of Nashville,’ wrestles with his devils as he struggles to assign blame for his wife’s relationship with a white man. The convergence of the lives and choices of these fascinating characters—made from fear, pride, determination, spite, nobility and revenge—leads to a heart-pounding and heartbreaking climax that feels at once original, audacious and inevitable.”