and now, Bett Norris …

Bett Norris, born and raised in Alabama a few short miles from the place where Harper Lee did the same, followed in the footsteps of her idol and inspiration by attending the University of Alabama, somehow managing to graduate with a degree in history and a burning desire to write. Real life intruded, but many years later, her first novel, Miss McGhee, a runnerup for the first annual Bywater prize for fiction, was published, a story set in the south during the decades of the civil rights movement. She dutifully set her second novel, What’s Best for Jane, in the South as well, certain that the well of rich material to be found there will never run dry.

Norris continues to write using the South as source material and setting. “Almost everybody’s got a story about crazy relatives, mad dogs, good trucks, fishing, deer hunting, drinking, cussing, fighting, football, running around barefoot in the summers, better times in the past, and where the bootleggers live.”

She now lives in Florida with her partner Sandy Moore, an artist. Bett gets up every morning at an insanely early hour to write.

Find out more on Beth’s blogsite

And another gorgeous cover :

Grudges die hard in the South
Mary McGhee knows that more than most. Jimmy Jackson hates her and she imagines his daughter Jane hates her too. Turns out, though, that Jane has a mind of her own. Which is how an old, lonely woman finds herself getting to know a young, lonely girl. It’s an innocent relationship, but Jimmy assumes it’s ugly. The poison from their past threatens today. As Mary’s life draws to a close, she struggles to know what’s best, determined to make a future for Jane. But Jane has a mind of her own.