By Gina Webb
Happy New Year, readers! We could not imagine better timing than Day 1 of 2012 for a first look at the hottest upcoming titles set in the South or written by Southerners, including two much-anticipated music books and novels by emerging authors you won’t want to miss.
January
“A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty,” Joshilyn Jackson (Grand Central, $25.99).
Just as Mosey Slocumb turns 15, a long-hidden grave unearthed in the backyard threatens to ruin everything her grandmother has struggled to win for the teen since Mosey’s drug-addicted mother brought her home to Mississippi. Jackson’s signature style — the feisty, bighearted voice of “Gods in Alabama” and “Backseat Saints” — propels this funny, dark whodunit, where strong women who’ve made bad choices band together to come out on top.
“The Evening Hour,” A. Carter Sickels (Bloomsbury, $15).
Intense, edgy storytelling and a distinctive voice mark newcomer Sickels’ novel, set in a …
“They were pariahs of the most extreme sort, American untouchables, a caste of men ranked far below the merely alcoholic, addicted, or deranged homeless. They were men beyond redemption, care, or cure, both despicable and impossible to remove and thus by most people simply wished out of existence.”
