The Real Minerva

Ariveting, old-fashioned story with a modern spirit, Mary Sharratt"s
follow-up to her much-acclaimed debut, Summit Avenue, is the
story of three women forging their own paths in a midwestern farming
community. In 1923, as book-loving Penny enters adolescence, her
mother pulls her out of school to go to work. Penny, the only child of
Barbara, an embittered single mother who works as a cleaning woman
for a wealthy family, sees no escape from her bleak existence until a
scandalous figure arrives in the town of Minerva, Minnesota, and sets
tongues wagging. Cora, very pregnant, very headstrong, and very alone,
has come to make a home on her grandfather"s farm. Intrigued by this
curious woman, Penny goes to work for her. Like Sue Monk Kidd"s
The Secret Life of Bees, The Real Minerva is a suspenseful and moving
novel about the strength of women and the unexpected bonds that form
between them.