Shady Grove — Janice Holt Giles

Broke Neck, Kentucky, lies deep in Appalachia. Its people are descendents of the men and women who settled the country in Revolutionary War times, and their ways have not changed much in the past two hundred years. Shady Grove chronicles the riotous adventures and misadventures of Broke Neck's Fowler clan, among them Frony, the feisty and articulate widow who narrates the tale, and Sudley, a farmer whose hound dogs tree a visiting preacher.

Janice Holt Giles, a transplant to Appalachia, shows us the region's character through the story of a people who don't like to walk proud but will always stand by their own. Shady Grove, her last book of fiction about her adopted Kentucky homeland, is engaging not only as a cultural document, but also as a novel that makes us laugh and touches our hearts.

Long out of print, Shady Grove is available again for new and veteran readers of Janice Holt Giles.