The Girl from Charnelle — K.L. Cook

It's 1960 in the Panhandle town of Charnelle, Texas--a year and a half since sixteen-year-old Laura Tate's mother boarded a bus and mysteriously disappeared. Assuming responsibility for the Tate household, Laura cares for her father and three brothers and outwardly maintains a sense of calm. But her balance is upset and the repercussions of her family's struggles are revealed when a chance encounter with a married man leads Laura into a complicated relationship for which she is unprepared. As Kennedy battles Nixon for the White House, Laura must navigate complex emotional terrain and choose whether she, too, will flee Charnelle.

A heartfelt portrait of a young woman's reckoning with the paradoxes of love--eloquent, tender, and heart-wrenching--K. L. Cook's unforgettable debut novel marks the arrival of a significant new voice in American fiction.