Back to Blue Holly: A Novel

By Beth Pride

Dottie is divorced and depleted when she ditches her Louisville home, loads up her dog and four Hefty bags of clothes, and heads back to Blue Holly and the Quinn family lake house, where the promise of family and a gallery job beckon her like a moth to a flame. She arrives to find her childhood sanctuary has a massive culture chip on its north Georgia shoulders and Aunt Lo has lost her feud with Fannie Fraser and the Citizens Against Virtually Everything, closed the gallery, and is packing to leave.

Before Lo goes, she gives Dottie the keys to the Red Arrow, a condemned hardware store, and says if Dottie fixes it, she can keep it. Dottie can't get a loan, is sick of being alone, and knows nothing about using a drill, but when she spots an old moonshine still, she decides on a new, if dissonant, direction in an evangelical town with little taste for liquor and tourism. Dottie and a relatable cast of damaged characters, including the handsome Crawford Woody, unite to fight against time and undeniable forces to transform the Red Arrow into the first microbrewery in Bluff County—finding love and community, and rebuilding each other along the way.