Fair and Tender Ladies

Lee Smith
4.19
7,965 ratings 808 reviews
From Ivy Rowe's birth on Blue Star Mountain, her life is full of passion and longing as she writes letters to family and friends. Ivy's talent as a budding writer is recognized early on, but just as she is about to realize her dream of going north to school, she is betrayed by her passionate nature. Facing an unwed pregnancy and publicly admonished for her sins, Ivy marries a childhood friend who takes her back to the family homestead, where she bears several children and endures the endless toil of a farmer's wife. Through her trials Ivy holds firm, knowing that her life will hold happiness one day.
Genres: FictionHistorical FictionSouthernBook ClubComing Of AgeAudiobookHistoricalLiterary FictionNovelsChick Lit
336 Pages

Community Reviews:

5 star
3529 (44%)
4 star
2857 (36%)
3 star
1220 (15%)
2 star
256 (3%)
1 star
103 (1%)

Readers also enjoyed

Other books by Lee Smith

Lists with this book

Cold Mountain
Christy
Prodigal Summer
Best Books Set in Appalachia
787 books834 voters
To Kill a Mockingbird
Gone with the Wind
The Help
Best Southern Literature
1328 books2570 voters
The Help
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Secret Life of Bees
Quirky Southern Fiction
955 books1892 voters
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Dracula
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Epistolary Fiction
849 books819 voters