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Exploring power, safety with Nancy Hartney's novel 'The Blue Bottle Tree'

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Ozark Hollow Press

In the new novel “The Blue Bottle Tree,” Susan Butler, nicknamed Pea after a childhood experience, returns to her small Georgia hometown after living in New York City. She’s come back to help her longtime friend and now sister-in-law Eve deal with a terminal illness, Eve’s less-than-noble husband, Major, and Eve’s teenage daughter, Janie.

It’s 1970, and tensions of class and race weigh on the characters in “The Blue Bottle Tree,” and Gothic secrets move our story along, as does Letta Davis, the woman who has been employed by Major for years and lost her husband in an accident at the mill owned by Major Butler.

Nancy Hartney’s second novel patrols the worlds of greed, friendship and power of 1970s Georgia. She’ll discuss the book on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Pearl’s Books in downtown Fayetteville. Nancy Hartney joined Ozarks at Large's Kyle Kellams in the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studi to talk about the book.

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Kyle Kellams is KUAF's news director and host of Ozarks at Large.
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