The Song of the Blue Bottle Tree

"Set in rural Arkansas in 1967, this evocative Southern novel, helmed by an unconventional and unforgettable heroine, draws readers into a visceral tale of secrets, desperate choices, and belonging. Genevieve Charbonneau talks to ghosts and has a special relationship with rattlesnakes. In her travels, she's wandered throughout the South, working in a Louisiana circus and as a hootchy-kootch dancer in Texas. Now for the first time in a decade, she's allowed her winding path to bring her to the site of her grandmother's Arkansas farmouse, a place hallowed in her memory. Disguised by years in exile and a name she found on a gravestone, Genevieve intends only to visit briefly and leave. But a chance meeting with a guilt-ridden young Vietnam veteran draws her into more unexpected connections. Her hard-won independence inspires an abused woman and her daughters to find their own path to empowerment, and a hypocritical preacher is brought to a long-deserved reckoning. With undertones of magic