The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around--fast. On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that’s where his adventures begin. Cold Sassy Tree is the undeniably entertaining and extraordinarily moving account of small-town Southern life in a bygone era. Brimming with characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Olive Ann Burns’s classic bestseller is a timeless, funny, and resplendent treasure.

At the time of her death, Olive Ann Burns had completed 15 chapters of the sequel to her bestselling novel, Cold Sassy Tree. With the publication of Leaving Cold Sassy, we bid farewell to this beloved author and the unforgettable characters she created. Olive Ann's editor has drawn on correspondence and conversations with the author to suggest directions the sequel might have taken, and she also tells Olive Ann's inspiring story. Photographs.