John McMillan was only eight years old when his mother died and he was ripped, without warning, from his sheltered world of books and gentility. Now on his aunt's run-down tenant farm in southern Alabama, abused by his alcoholic uncle, and completely bereft, John longs for escape—his only hope for survival.
He's about to get his wish in a way no one could ever predict....A twist of fate will bring John to the Bend, a black settlement that has...

A re-telling of Edith Wharton's novel, "Ethan Frome," about an unsuccessful suicide by a man and his mistress. It leaves them crippled and the man's wife, Zeena, is the one who has to nurse them. In this novel the events are seen from Zeena's point of view.

Set deep in the remote countryside of Massachusetts, New England, in a world of small-town prejudice, pettiness and rural poverty, the story of Ethan Frome explores the crippling marriage of a young man to an older woman and his love for her vibrant young cousin, Mattie, who lives as a dependent in the Frome household. His feelings lead to a day of explosive emotions with tragic consequences. Published in 1911, two years before Wharton divorced her...