Southern voices and Southern sun — two reasons to smile. Well, at least we’ve still have those wonderful Southern writers to keep us warm until the sun returns. (Where, oh, where, has it gone?) Our March Lucky Stars e-books feature some classic work by some unforgettable authors — for just $1.99 apiece throughout the month. Fill up your e-library, pour yourself a glass of sweet tea and enjoy. Just enjoy!

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons: “When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy.”

With that opening sentence we are introduced to the eleven-year-old heroine of Ellen Foster, a stunning novel by Kaye Gibbons. Ellen Foster tells her own story, with an honesty, a perceptivity, and quite unselfconscious heroism. Her mother dies. She stays with her father until it becomes too dangerous. She lives with a teacher, a grandmother who blames her for her father’s marriage, then with an aunt. At the close she discovers a home where at last she is wanted and loved.

Ellen Foster takes things as they come. She judges people shrewdly and well. Her ties with her black friend Starletta are beautifully revealed. Her own courage, her humor, and her wisdom are unforgettable. Kaye Gibbons’ first novel is one to be read over and over. The little girl’s absence of self-pity, her determination, and her gratitude to those who help her, make her a heroine who lives beyond the printed page. She takes a place in our hearts.

You will love Ellen Foster: Once you read it, it will be unforgettable.

You can buy the Ellen Foster e-book for $1.99 throughout March. 

 Acts of God by Ellen Gilchrist: The human race. You have to love it and wish it well and not preach or think you have any reason to think you are better than anyone else. Amen. Good-bye. Peace . . .
Master short story writer Ellen Gilchrist, winner of the National Book Award, returns with her first story collection in over eight years. In Acts of God, she has crafted ten different scenarios in which people dealing with forces beyond their control somehow manage to survive, persevere, and triumph, even if it is only a triumph of the will.For Marie James, a teenager from Fayetteville, Arkansas, the future changes when she joins a group of friends in their effort to find survivors among the debris left when a tornado destroys a neighboring town.For Philipa, a woman blessed with beauty and love and a life without care, the decision she makes to take control of her fate is perhaps the easiest she has ever made. As she writes to Charles, her husband and lifetime partner, “Nothing is of value except to have lived well and to die without pain.”For Eli Naylor, left orphaned by a flood, there comes an understanding that sometimes out of tragedy can come the greatest good, as he finds a life and a future in a most unexpected place.In one way or another, all of these people are fighters and believers, survivors who find the strength to go on when faced with the truth of their mortality, and they are given vivid life in these stories, told with Ellen Gilchrist’s clear-eyed optimism and salty sense of humor.

You can buy the Acts of God e-book for $1.99 throughout March.

Guests on Earth by Lee Smith: It’s 1936 when orphaned thirteen-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital, a mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina, known for its innovative treatments for nervous disorders and addictions. Taken under the wing of the hospital’s most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald, Evalina witnesses cascading events that lead up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward, Zelda among them. Author Lee Smith has created, through a seamless blending of fiction and fact, a mesmerizing novel about a world apart–in which art and madness are luminously intertwined.

You can buy the Guests on Earth e-book for $1.99 throughout March. 

 Raney by Clyde Edgerton: “This book is too good to keep to yourself. Read it aloud with someone you love, then send it to a friend. But be sure to keep a copy for yourself, because you’ll want to read it again and again.”– Elizabeth Forsythe HaileyRaney is a small-town Baptist. Charles is a liberal from Atlanta. And Raney is the story of their marriage. Charming, wise, funny, and truthful, it is a novel for everyone to love. “A real jewel.”–Richmond Times-Dispatch

You can buy the Raney e-book for $1.99 throughout March. 

 Life After Life by Jill McCorkle: Award-winning author Jill McCorkle takes us on a splendid journey through time and memory in this, her tenth work of fiction.

Life After Life is filled with a sense of wonder at our capacity for self-discovery at any age. And the residents, staff, and neighbors of the Pine Haven retirement center (from twelve-year-old Abby to eighty-five-year-old Sadie) share some of life’s most profound discoveries and are some of the most true-to-life characters that you are ever likely to meet in fiction.

Delivered with her trademark wit, Jill McCorkle’s constantly surprising novel illuminates the possibilities of second chances, hope, and rediscovering life right up to the very end. She has conjured an entire community that reminds us that grace and magic can—and do—appear when we least expect it.

You can buy the Life After Life e-book for $1.99 throughout March.

 Wolf Whistle by Lewis Nordan: ALA Notable Book; 1994 Mississippi Writers Award for Fiction; 1994 Southern Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. In WOLF WHISTLE, Lewis Nordan unleashes the hellhounds of his prodigious imagination on one of the most notorious racial killings of the century, the Emmett Till murder. Soon we’re on a magical mystery tour of the Southern psyche of the mid-1950s and the dawning of guilt and recognition in a whole generation of white Southerners. “An immense and wall-shattering display of talent. WOLF WHISTLE will help usher Lewis Nordan into the Hall of Fame of American Letters.”–Randall Kenan, The Nation.

You can buy the Wolf Whistle e-book for $1.99 throughout March. 

 The Road from Gap Creek by Robert Morgan: One of America’s most acclaimed writers returns to the land on which he has staked a literary claim to paint an indelible portrait of a family in a time of unprecedented change. In a compelling weaving of fact and fiction, Robert Morgan introduces a family’s captivating story, set during World War II and the Great Depression. Driven by the uncertainties of the future, the family struggles to define itself against the vivid Appalachian landscape. The Road from Gap Creek explores modern American history through the lives of an ordinary family persevering through extraordinary times.

You can buy the The Road from Gap Creek e-book for $1.99 throughout March.