The Queen of Palmyra Gwin, Minrose Fiction/General
	On Sale Date:	4/27/10
	Print Run:	100,000
	Format:	Trade Paperback
		432 pgs.
	Price:	$14.99
	ISBN:	0061840327
	ISBN 13:	9780061840326
	Other Formats
	LP	9780061980183
	Ebook	9780061992537

“Florence Forrest lives in Millwood, a town like any other in the South in 1963: segregated, with Millwood proper the white part and Shake Rag the “colored” side of town. Florence’s father is a burial insurance salesman and a ne’er-do-well with dark secrets. Her mother, the local cake lady, is stuck in a marriage that has strayed far from her educated and liberal upbringing, making secret trips to the local bootlegger. This leaves Florence with Zenie, her grandparents’ longtime maid. Zenie, named for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, drags Florence around and generally thinks of the girl as just another chore. As Florence spends more and more time in Zenie’s home in Shake Rag, she develops a sense for how race truly divides her town, but nothing prepares her for what happens when Zenie’s niece, the vibrant college student Eva Green, comes to stay for the summer. Soon Florence, who has moved fluidly between two families, between two races, finds herself stuck in the middle, a witness to the brutality and the truth of her times, in Minrose Gwin’s astonishing and moving novel.”