Cakewalk

Continuing in the exuberant tradition of Six of One, Bingo, and Loose Lips, New York Times bestselling author Rita Mae Brown returns to her much-loved fictional hamlet of Runnymede, whose memorable citizens are welcoming both the end of the Great War and the beginning of a new era.
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The night a riot breaks out at the Capitol Theater movie house—during a Mary Pickford picture, no less—you can bet that the Hunsenmeir sisters, Louise and Julia, are nearby. Known locally as Wheezie and Juts, the inimitable, irrepressible, distinctly freethinking sisters and their delightful circle of friends are coming of age in a shifting world—and are determined to understand their place in it. Across town, the well-to-do Chalfonte siblings are preparing for the upcoming wedding of brother Curtis. But for youngest sister Celeste, the celebration brings about a change she never expected and a lesson about love she’ll not soon forget.
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Set against the backdrop of America emerging from World War I, Cakewalk is an outrageous and affecting novel about a small town where ideas of sin and virtue, love and sex, men and women, politics and religion, can be as divided as the Mason-Dixon Line that runs right through it—and where there’s no problem that can’t be cured by a good yarn and an even better scotch. With her signature Southern voice, Rita Mae Brown deftly weaves generations of family stories into a spirited patchwork quilt of not-so-simple but joyously rich life.
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Praise for Rita Mae Brown’s Runnymede novels
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Six of One
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“Joyous, passionate and funny.”—The Washington Post Book World
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“No matter how quirky or devilish, Brown’s people cavort in an atmosphere of tenderness. . . . It is refreshing to encounter this celebration of human energy.”—Chicago Sun-Times
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Bingo
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“Genuinely funny.”—Los Angeles Times
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“Vividly drawn characters . . . and tart, loving humor.”—Self
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Loose Lips
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“Surprises . . . come from Rita Mae Brown’s comic timing and her affection for eccentrics.”—The Seattle Times
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“[Brown] does an admirable job of portraying the effects World War II has one? small American town.”—The Arizona Republic

Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of the Sneaky Pie Brown series; the Sister Jane series; the Runnymede books, including Six of One and Cakewalk; A Nose for Justice and Murder Unleashed; Rubyfruit Jungle; and In Her Day, as well as fifty-one other novels. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brown lives in Afton, Virginia.