Janis Owens: 5 books

Though our roots are in the Colonial South, we Crackers are essentially just another American fusion culture, and our table and our stories are constantly expanding -- nearly as fast as our waistlines. We aren't ashamed of either, and we're always delighted with the prospect of company: someone to...

JOLIE HOYT IS A GOOD SOUTHERN GIRL living in Hendrix, a small Florida Panhandle town. The daughter of a Pentecostal preacher who sells insurance on the side, and the best friend of a lively beauty who moves to the big city to pursue a career in interior design, Jolie is all too aware of her family’s...

Winner of the Chatauqua South Award for Fiction Out of the shotgun houses and deep, shaded porches of a west Florida mill town comes this extraordinary novel of love and redemption as told by Gabriel Catts. On the eve of his fortieth birthday, Gabe attempts to reconcile a family shattered by...

Readers received a refreshing introduction to the Sims and Catts families in Owens' first novel, My Brother Michael, narrated by the inimitable Gabriel Catts. Here to tell her side is Myra Sims, the apex of a love triangle that includes Gabe and his brother, Michael. Myra's fresh perspective will...

To be perfectly honest, the day my father died really wasn't the worst day of my life. When his beloved father, Michael, dies, Claybird Catts finds solace in the company of his close-knit family -- his mysterious and beautiful mother, Myra; his lovable, know-it-all sister, Missy; his newly...