Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Tom Parker

Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award

One thing you could depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, was that word got around—fast. If the preacher’s wife’s petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, eloped with Miss Love Simpson—a woman half his age and, worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy’s adventures began, and an unimpeachably pious town came to life.

As the newlyweds' chaperone, conspirator, and confidant, Will is privy to his renegade grandfather's second adolescence. Meanwhile, Will does some growing up of his own. He gets run over by a train and lives to tell about it, and he kisses his first girl and survives that too. Olive Ann Burns has given us a timeless, funny, Southern romance.

“Rich with emotion, humor, and tenderness…A novel about an old man growing young, a young man growing up, and the modern age coming to a small Southern town.”—Washington Post Book World

“No less than brilliant!”—Globe

“Exuberant, funny, touching.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Full of humor and Twainesque adventures, the story is replete with a wonderful mix of characters and the trappings of turn-of-the-century life. Narrator Tom Parker is perfectly cast.” —Library Journal

“A winner! This classic of Southern mores, coming of age, and abiding love is told with care and verve by a narrator who assumes all roles in a realistic but restrained manner and varies his capable Southern accent to suit both male and female, black and white, educated or millhand. Sympathy, appreciation, and understanding make Parker’s presentation completely faithful to the spirit of the book as much a pleasure to hear as it is to read.”—KLIATT

“An effervescent novel…Tom Parker’s enlightened reading greatly enhances the emotive effect of the novel. With an impressive array of consistently natural voices, he involves the listener directly in the drama of the characters’ lives…Rich in characterization and dialogue, this novel is well-suited to the audio format; Tom Parker superbly conveys this great wealth.”—AudioFile

Olive Ann Burns (1924-1990) was born on a farm in Banks County, Georgia, and went to school in nearby Commerce, which was the model for Cold Sassy. She received a degree in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for ten years was on the Sunday magazine staff of the Journal and Constitution.