book details

Book: In High Cotton by Ane Mulligan

categories: Book, Southern Fiction, Great Depression, Chosen Family, Friendship, Women in Business, Christian Fiction, Unlikely Friends, Steel Magnolias, Depression Recipes, Hope, Historical Fiction

Ane Mulligan

about this book: In the tradition of Steel Magnolias but set in the Great Depression, young widow, Maggie Parker is raising her young son, Barry, alone. Even holding two jobs—newspaper columnist and running her grocery store—she doesn't have the money for Georgia's newly instated business tax. If she can't pay it, she'll lose her home and livelihood.

Then, Maggie's sister Duchess, arrives in Rivers End, bringing the money from the jewelry sale along with devastating news. Her husband lost everything in the stock market crash, then had the audacity to end his life, leaving her alone and penniless.

Then Barry, copying the Good Samaritan in the Bible, brings home a battered pregnant teenager, Pinkie Yates. Maggie can't turn her out but now has another dependent. When her father-in-law, Big Jim, discovers she's sheltering an unmarried pregnant girl, he accuses Maggie of being a disgrace and subjecting his grandson to loose morals. He threatens that if she doesn't throw out Pinkie and sell the store, he'll call the newly formed Child Protection Services to take the boy from her.

Can Maggie and her friends come together in an unlikely friendship and chosen family to outwit Big Jim?

In High Cotton is set in rural south Georgia at the outset of the Great Depression, where life has been hardscrabble since the War of Northern Aggression.