Cold Sassy Tree cover

Cold Sassy Tree

by Olive Ann Burns

If the preacher's wife's petticoat showed, the ladies would make the talk last a week. But on July 5, 1906, things took a scandalous turn. That was the day E. Rucker Blakeslee, proprietor of the general store and barely three weeks a widower, cloped with Miss Love Simpson - a woman half his age and worse yet, a Yankee! On that day, fourteen year old Will Tweedy's adventures began and an unimpeachably pious deliciously irreverent town came to life. Not since To Kill a Mockingbird has a novel so deftly captured the subtle crosscurrents of small-town southern life. Olive Ann Burns's classic best seller brings to vivid life an era that will never exist again, exploring timeless issues of love, death, coming of age, and the ties that bind families and generations. Stunning, often funny, always deeply moving. Cold Sassy Tree reverberates in the mind long after the last page is turned.

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?