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Author Donna Everhart, “When the Jessamine Grows”

  • Well Red 223 Opelika Road Auburn, AL, 36830 United States (map)

We’re excited to welcome author Donna Everhart to share and celebrate her new evocative book, “When the Jessamine Grows” (out 1/23)! Join us on Monday, February 5th at 6:30pm for a cozy discussion with the USA Today bestselling Southern author of “The Road to Bittersweet” and “The Education of Dixie Dupree.” Donna returns to Well Red after sharing her immersive novel, “The Saints of Swallow Hill,” to a captivated audience in 2023. Be sure to take home a signed copy of her newest book on the night of the event!

For readers of “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier and “Enemy Women” by Paulette Jiles, “When the Jessamine Grows” is an evocative, morally complex novel set in rural 19th century North Carolina, as one woman fights to keep her family united, her farm running, and her convictions whole during the most devastating and divisive period in American history.

Talk of impending war is a steady drumbeat throughout North Carolina, though Joetta McBride pays it little heed. She and her husband, Ennis, have built a modest but happy life for themselves, raising two sons, fifteen-year-old Henry, and eleven-year-old Robert, on their small subsistence farm. They do not support the Confederacy’s position on slavery, but Joetta considers her family to be neutral, believing this is simply not their fight.

Her opinion is not favored by many in their community, including Joetta’s own father-in-law, Rudean. A staunch Confederate supporter, he fills his grandsons’ heads with stories about the glory of battle and the Southern cause until one night Henry runs off to join the war. At Joetta’s frantic insistence, Ennis leaves to find their son and bring him home.

But soon weeks pass with no word from father or son and Joetta is battered by the strain of running a farm with so little help. As the country becomes further entangled in the ramifications of war, Joetta finds herself increasingly at odds with those around her – until one act of kindness brings her family to the edge of even greater disaster.

Though shunned and struggling to survive, Joetta remains committed to her principles, and to her belief that her family will survive. But the greatest tests are still to come – for a fractured nation, for Joetta, and for those she loves . . .

Earlier Event: January 30
Legend Australian Wine Imports Tasting
Later Event: February 11
Queer Voices Book Club