The Empress of Cooke County: A Novel

Elizabeth Bass Parman has created one of the most unlikeable characters I’ve ever read Poesy Burch Jarvis, the protagonist of The Empress of Cooke Country. Though I hated Poesy, I couldn’t stop flipping pages to see what happened to her.

When her great-aunt dies, Poesy– an ungrateful, hateful, vindictive woman–inherits a mansion. This single event sets the life in motion that she always believed she deserved. Her husband Vern, the owner and proprietor of an antique store, and her daughter Calle Jane try to understand her, but Poesy doesn’t allow them to. As Poesy belittles Vern and attempts to thwart Callie Jane’s pursuit of happiness, the clock seems to be running out on Poesy’s dreams. She tries to fix the mansion up for a class reunion only to be ridiculed for her behavior on the big night itself.

As much as I hated Poesy, I loved her daughter Callie Jane and the rest of the people in Spark, TN. Callie Jane knows who she is and what she wants, a trait she shares with her mother, but she is as kind and loving as her mother is spiteful and deluded. The ending truly surprised me and left me thrilled with the outcome for The Empress of Cooke County.