BILLIE LETTS

Novalee Nation heads this first novel. A feisty young woman who is seven months pregnant when she leaves her Tennessee trailer park with her boyfriend, she is abandoned outside a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma. Living on canned goods and sleeping behind the water heater, Novalee carries her pregnancy to term, and her child becomes known as the Wal-Mart baby. Novalee eventually gets a job at the Wal-Mart, and makes a life for herself and her child.

A down on her luck pregnant teen finds herself living in a shopping center in this Oprahs Book Club selection that inspired the film starring Ashley Judd and Natalie Portman. Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest towna group of down-to-earth, deeply caring people willing to help a homeless, jobless girl. From Bible-thumping blue-haired Sister Thelma Husband to eccentric librarian Forney Hull, they are about to take herand you, tooon a moving, funny, and unforgettable journey.

From one of Americas best-loved storytellers - the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Where the Heat Is - comes a tale of a small Oklahoma town and the mystery that has haunted its residents for years. In 1972, windswept DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the murder of a young mother, Gaylene Harjo, and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the childs pajama bottoms were discovered on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared that he, too, had been killed, although his body was never found. Nearly thirty years later, Nicky Jack mysteriously returns to DeClare, shocking the town and stirring up long-buried memories. But what he discovers about the night he vanished is more astonishing than he or anyone could have imagine. Piece by piece, what emerges is a story of dashed hopes, desperate love, and a secret that still cries out for justice...and redemption.