A Virtuous Woman

by Kaye Gibbons

Published 1 May 1989

Ruby Pitt rejects the quiet life planned for her by her adoring family and runs off with John Woodrow, a migrant worker who turns out to be a cruel and violently abusive liar. When he dies in a street brawl, Ruby takes up with Blinking Jack Stokes, a quiet, uneducated, but highly capable tenant twenty years her senior. He is surprised as anyone when she agrees to marry him.

Kaye Gibbons conjures up a vivid portrait of an unlikely, but successful marriage set against a land that connects past troubles and present loss with future hopes.


Ellen Foster

by Kaye Gibbons

Published 12 January 1987
Having suffered abuse and misfortune for much of her life, a young child searches for a better life and finally gets a break in the home of a loving woman with several foster children.