Swan Place

The Story

Publishers Weekly hailed Sophie and the Rising Sun, Augusta Trobaugh's previous novel, as 'part Remains of the Day, part wartime drama.' And Anne Rivers Siddons calls Trobaugh 'a voice from and for the South, as complex and resonant as the region itself.' Now this uniquely gifted storyteller gives us her most radiant and resilient character yet: fourteen-year-old Dove, born into a hardscrabble world of poverty and abandonment, forced to become wise beyond her years by life's tough breaks. A series of family tragedies leaves Dove, her younger sister, Molly, and their baby brother, Little Ellis, in the care of their stepmother, seventeen-year-old Crystal. Overwhelmed by raising three orphaned children on her own, Crystal turns to their Bible-thumping Aunt Bett, and Dove herself takes on much of the responsibility for looking after her siblings. But the fragile new household is disrupted when Molly's deadbeat blood father threatens to bring a custody suit. Determined to keep the family together, Crystal and Dove flee with the children to a secret refuge called Swan Place. It is here that the emerging woman Dove meets a group of devout Black women who transform her life-and the lives of her family-in unusual and profound ways. With insight and compassion, Trobaugh once again illuminates the battles-large and small-we wage daily in the face of adversity, the everyday miracles that help us survive, and the faith that carries us through.