<DIV>Ruby River drops us into a small town during a blistering Alabama summer. Hattie Bohannon has just opened a truck stop — a magnet for transients of questionable background and inclination, some say, and an uneasy presence in tradition — bound, gossipy Maridoches. Hattie is quietly mourning her recently dead husband, while her strong-willed daughters — whose burgeoning sexuality is attracting attention from some of the truck stop patrons — keep her at loose ends. In a season of unrelenting heat, desire gestates and hovers over Maridoches, threatening the moral equilibrium of the small church town. When Hattie's oldest daughter, Jessamine, is falsely accused of prostitution, the Reverend Peterson and his congregation protest the immorality of the Bohannons and their establishment. Crackling with the energy and spark of strong, colorful characters whose lives are continually colliding, Ruby River is a poignant, uplifting story by a writer of extraordinary generosity of spirit and earthy wit.</div>