Big Cherry Holler : a Big Stone Gap novel
(Book)

Series information from NoveList.

In this sequel to Big Stone Gap (LJ 4/1/00), it's now the late 1980s, and Ave Maria and Jack MacChesney have been married 11 years. They have a ten-year-old daughter, Etta, but lost their younger child, Joe, a few years earlier. This loss and other marital stresses have tested their relationship, but the summer brings on the biggest trial yet. As Jack tries to launch a new construction business in Big Stone Gap, VA, Ave Maria and Etta take off for Italy. While many of the same humorous characters of the first novel reappear here, the tragedy of the death of a child and the chill it can cast on any marriage make this work more somber than its predecessor. Nonetheless, this novel of love and forgiveness delivers its story in a believable manner. Ave Maria remains someone readers would like to know, and Iva Lou, her librarian friend, still has her finger on the pulse of Mars/Venus relationships in this neck of the woods.