Amazon.com description: Product Description: A New York Times Bestselling Author -- 1950 Tennessee, a time and place that straddles past and present. Ivorie Walker is considered an old maid by the town (though she's only in her early thirties). She takes that label with good humor and a grain of salt, hiding her loneliness behind a fierce independence. When she realizes that a dirty-faced boy has been stealing vegetables from her garden, Ivorie can't imagine his desperation. Who is he? How did he come to live in the hills he disappears into?