South

The South series links two novels set in Franklin, Tennessee, around Carnton and the historical women whose lives were shaped by slavery, war and its aftermath. The Widow of the South follows Carrie McGavock during the Battle of Franklin and her later care of the soldiers’ cemetery, while The Orphan Mother turns to Mariah Reddick, formerly enslaved by the McGavock household, during Reconstruction.

Together the novels move from Confederate defeat to emancipation and the unfinished struggle for justice. Familiar people and places recur, but the second book shifts the centre of the story from a white plantation household to a Black midwife building an independent life in a community threatened by racial violence.