The Waiting Time

Completed just prior to her death in 1996, Price's (Beauty from Ashes) final novel is ponderously plotted and awash in sweet naivete. Her last chronicle of the Old South begins in the North, as Boston blueblood Abigail (Abby) Barnes marries rice planter Eli Edward Allyn and moves with him to coastal Georgia. But after only five years of marriage, Abigail feels trapped by Eli's silences and his preoccupation with their plantation, Abbeyfield. Then Eli, on his way to rendezvous with an illegal slave ship, drowns in a sudden storm. Left alone with a plantation to run, Abigail finds herself growing closer to her housemaid, Rosa Moon, and spending ever more time with Abbeyfield's handsome overseer, Thad Green. Confused by her feelings about Eli's death, her growing attraction to Thad and her increasing doubts about the morality of slavery, Abbey returns to Boston for a visit. Surrounded by her mother's abolitionist friends, it isn't long before she decides she must free all her slaves. Returning to Georgia, she is encouraged in this plan by Thad, who has proposed marriage. While the fate of Abby's slaves is left unresolved in the wake of John Brown's raid and in the shadow of the looming Civil War, Abby's future with Thad is happily secured. As usual, Price works in only the most primary of emotional colors; although the picture she paints isn't subtle, it's sure to be treasured by her millions of fans. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections; Crossings main selection. (May)