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Sign up todayThe Girls in the Stilt House
A Novel
Narrator
Johanna Parker
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Length
9 hours 56 minutes
Language
English
Murder breaks through the racial divide that separates two teenage girls, forging an unlikely friendship in this Southern debut that’s perfect for fans of Where the Crawdads Sing and If the Creek Don’t Rise.
Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. And she knows there will be a price to pay with her father.
Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle. She forms a plan to go north, to pack up the secrets she’s holding about her life in the South and hang them on the line for all to see.
As the two girls are drawn deeper into a dangerous world of bootleggers and moral corruption, they must come to terms with the complexities of their tenuous bond and a hidden past that links them in ways that could cost them their lives.
Kelly Mustian grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines, and she is a past recipient of a Blumenthal Writers Award and a Regional Artist Grant from the North Carolina Arts & Science Council. She currently lives near the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. The Girls in the Stilt House is her debut novel.
Johanna Parker is an Audie and Earphone Award–winning actress living and working in San Francisco. Since narrating her first audiobook in 2002, she has received praise for her work in all genres, including her portrayal of Sookie Stackhouse in Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire books. She received her BFA in acting from Boston University and studied Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She has performed on stages in London, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York and has numerous film and television credits. As a voice-over actress, she has voiced commercials, video games, documentaries, and websites.
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Reviews
“An astonishingly assured debut…the best book I’ve read in a very long time. A triumph!”
“Authentic characters complement the vivid setting…in this nearly flawless tale of loss, perseverance, and redemption.”
“Highly readable [with a] richly realized setting.”
“Mustian’s lyrical prose, combined with her deep insight into the resiliency of the human spirit, makes this novel shine.”
“[A] rich debut…We ache for their sorrows, we cheer for their victories, and we recognize both ourselves and our nation in their troubles and their hopes.”
“In prose that is stunning and assured, Kelly Mustian forges a powerful story of two young women, thrust together after unspeakable loss and devastation, and their courageous struggle to emerge from their darkest hours.”
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