MARY KAY ANDREWS : THE FIXER-UPPER
Tuesday 7/13 The Iberian Pig, 5pm

The delightful New York Times bestselling author returns with a hilarious novel about one woman's quest to redo an old house . . . and her life.
After her boss in a high-powered Washington public relations firm is caught in a political scandal, fledgling lobbyist Dempsey Jo Killebrew is left almost broke, unemployed, and homeless. Out of options, she reluctantly accepts her father's offer to help refurbish Birdsong, the old family place he recently inherited in Guthrie, Georgia. All it will take, he tells her, is a little paint and some TLC to turn the fading Victorian mansion into a real-estate cash cow.
But, oh, is Dempsey in for a surprise when she arrives in Guthrie. "Bird Droppings" would more aptly describe the moldering Pepto Bismol–pink dump with duct-taped windows and a driveway full of junk. There's also a murderously grumpy old lady, one of Dempsey's distant relations, who has claimed squatter's rights and isn't moving out. Ever.
Furthermore, everyone in Guthrie seems to know Dempsey's business, from a smooth-talking real-estate agent to a cute lawyer who owns the local newspaper. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the pesky FBI agents who show up on Dempsey's doorstep, hoping to pry information about her ex-boss from her.
All Dempsey can do is roll up her sleeves and get to work. And before long, what started as a job of necessity somehow becomes a labor of love and, ultimately, a journey that takes her to a place she never expected—back home again.

Jennifer Weiner: FLY AWAY HOME
7/16 6pm
Margaret Mitchell House

Jennifer Weiner is the author of bestsellers, Best Friends Forever, Certain Girls, Good in Bed, In her shoes, Little Earthquakes, and The Guy Not Taken. Her latest, FLY AWAY HOME is written with an irresistible blend of heartbreak and hilarity. Fly Away Home is an unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.
When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician’s wife—her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledges that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator.
Lizzie, the Woodruffs’ younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve—a husband, a young son, the perfect home—and yet she’s trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER’s exam rooms, she finds herself craving more.
After Richard’s extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.

Joseph Gatins: WE WERE DANCING ON A VOLCANO: Bloodlines and Fault Lines of a Star-Crossed Atlanta Family, 1849-1989
7/17 Roswell Public Library, 2pm

This compelling saga, family biography and unsentimental social history follows the adventures of more than five generations of families that made their mark on Atlanta, New York, Savannah, Paris, Bogota and Killybegs, the tiny fishing village in County Donegal, Ireland, where the clan originated. The narrative especially highlights Gatins’ French grandmother's brave work with the French Resistance in World War II and her untiring efforts to successfully help her only son escape from Nazi prisoner of war camps.

The book, richly illustrated, has been more than a dozen years in the making, fruit of detailed research in courthouses and archives on three continents and review of voluminous family correspondence, documents and photo albums. Bilingual in French and English since childhood, he is responsible for all translations contained therein.

Now retired, Joseph Gatins for many years was a reporter and special projects editor with The Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond, Virginia. He was reared in Paris and Atlanta and now lives with his artist-author wife Fran in the mountains of north Georgia, where he is learning to appreciate the wilds that surround them.