Set on the cusp of the country's great social movements - youth, women's, peace, and civil rights - in the year before the love turned to anger and the peace to militancy, Downtown is the story of Smoky O'Donnell, her career and her heart. When Smoky arrives in Atlanta in 1966, after an airless lifetime back in Savannah, she is at once thrilled and chastened by this dazzling, hectic young city on the move. Atlanta is one of the first cities to have...

Leaving behind a disastrous marriage, Andy Calhoun moves to the small town of Pemberton, Georgia, "in search of banality." What she discovers, though, is not serenity, but Tom Dabney, a passionate and magical man.

Every summer, Thayer Wentworth, the daughter of a wealthy Middletown, Georgia family, attended Camp Greyledge on Burnt Mountain. It was there were she learned the facets of love and heartbreak with a boy named Nick Abrams. Years later, she marries Aengus, an Irish professor, and moves a few miles away from her childhood camp, much to the disapproval of her family. However, when Aengus spends a lot of time at the camp, Thayer realizes her husband might...