THE ROCK ORCHARD

First-time novelist Paula Wall has created one of the most interesting Southern women since Scarlett O'Hara. Narrator Susan Ericksen brings just the right touch of barbecue smoke and whiskey to the sensual and straightforward Charlotte Belle. While Charlotte's smoldering niece, Angela, enchants the new doctor in town, Charlotte seduces a man of the cloth in the next-door cemetery, or "rock orchard." Ericksen at first captures the lazy, humid atmosphere and then quickens the pace as events kick off a double-barreled romance, ending with love triumphing over all. R.O. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE/JULY 05]