From Amazon:
A GROWN-UP KIND OF PRETTY is a powerful saga of three generations of women, plagued by hardships and torn by a devastating secret, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of family. Fifteen-year-old Mosey Slocumb-spirited, sassy, and on the cusp of womanhood-is shaken when a small grave is unearthed in the backyard, and determined to figure out why it's there. Liza, her stroke-ravaged mother, is haunted by choices she made as a teenager. But it is Jenny*, Mosey's strong and big-hearted grandmother, whose maternal love braids together the strands of the women's shared past--and who will stop at nothing to defend their future.
*In the novel, the character's name is Ginny, but I am including this the way Amazon presents it.
I was pretty sure I'd like this book before I even started it. I've yet to read a Joshiliyn Jackson novel that I haven't liked. I was right.
The Slocumb women are victims of a fifteen-year curse. First Ginny got pregnant at fifteen, giving birth to Liza. Fifteen years later, Liza becomes pregnant, too. Now fourteen-year-old Mosey is so paranoid about becoming pregnant (she is a virgin) that she takes pregnancy tests constantly- just to remind herself that everything is ok- that she is not a victim to the Slocumb curse.
Liza has suffered a stroke which has left her unable to speak and partially paralyzed. When local handyman Tyler Baines cuts down the willow tree in the Slocumb's back yard to make room for the pool Liza needs for therapy, he makes a horrifying discovery- an infant buried in a small chest beneath the tree. Liza becomes distraught, uttering some of the only words she still knows- "My baby!" But if the baby beneath the tree is Liza's, who is Mosey?
This is a hard-to-put-down story of three women facing the world head on against all odds. It is a story of love and redemption. Joshilyn Jackson keeps you guessing right up to the final page.
Read this book if...
*you love southern fiction
*you love stories of mothers and daughters
*you love a good mystery