Livin' in High Cotton

Livin' in High Cotton takes place in western Georgia and eastern Alabama during the Great Depression. Times are hard, and the cotton industry is failing. Families need to bind together to survive.

Cultured, attractive, and strong-willed, Shelby Collins is mature for a fifteen-year-old. She and her family live in Cartersville, Georgia. Her mother has taken a trip to Alabama to tend Shelby’s ailing grandmother. Shelby has been left at home to care for her younger brother and sister and to see to the needs of her father. One night her father, who has come home drunk, tries to molest her. Frightened, she flees, but it isn’t long before her angry father tracks her down. Forcing her to write a note saying that she has run away from home, he takes her away and places her in a reform school in distant Birmingham.

While Shelby is able to make a new life for herself in Birmingham, she suffers greatly. Her happy home life is over, and it appears she will never see it again. Emotionally scarred by her abuse, she nevertheless learns that blessings can come in unexpected ways.

This poignant and heart-warming novel addresses several fundamental human longings. Is there an overshadowing influence for good that can help direct our lives? Can we learn to trust again after we’ve been betrayed? With evil people in the world, does it pay to be kind-hearted? Is there a power that can come into our hearts to help us forgive?

Popular Southern author Deborah Smith calls Livin’ in High Cotton, "A compelling story of family loyalty, love, loss, and strength, as warm and fertile as the rich red clay of a Georgia field. The inspiring, hardscrabble lives of Depression-era southerners make for a vivid story of love and forgiveness."

The novel is the first work of mother and daughter team Sandra Poole and Jennifer Leigh Youngblood. They have crafted the setting in and around the towns where they grew up, and the story is inspired by the real-life experiences of Sandra’s grandmother.

Besides being intimately familiar with the region and the people, Sandra and Jennifer have carefully researched the time period to make the setting historically accurate.