Cold Sassy Tree

"Cold Sassy, Georgia had never been a whirlpool of excitment. If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies could make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandlous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson - a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious, deliciously irreverent town came to life." From the bookjacket.