Josephine Humphreys je americká prozaička, ktorej diela sa hlboko ponárajú do južanskej mentality a zložitosti medziľudských vzťahov. Jej písanie je oceňované pre svoj prenikavý vhľad do ľudskej psychiky a pre svoj pokojný, no pôsobivý štýl. Humphreysová často skúma témy identity, rodiny a minulosti, ktoré formujú prítomnosť postáv. Jej romány ponúkajú čitateľom pútavé a zamysleniahodné pohľady na život na americkom juhu.
Brought up in a mixed-race community - part Scots, part Native American - in the forests of North Carolina in the mid-nineteenth century, Rhoda is the first of her family to be able to read and her parents have plans for her.
17-year-old Lucille Odom goes through a tumultuous summer in Mount Pleasant, S.C., when her mother abandons the family, her father becomes obsessed with finding his wife, and her older sister comes home married and pregnant.