The Cotton Queen

Morsi's fifth novel chronicles three generations of McKinney, Texas, beauty queens as they rediscover the strength of family bonds in the wake of disappointment. Cotton Queen runner-up and mother of reluctant queen Laney, Babs Hoffman is a World War II widow and a rape survivor who doesn't come fully back to life until psychotherapy and feminism invent new possibilities for her. Laney, on the other hand, learns the hard way that liberation isn't the be-all end-all: character counts, love skews everything and there are worse things for a woman to do than to put on a pretty dress. The strength of Morsi's characters outweigh the novel's saccharine moments; Morsi's many fans will appreciate this book.