The Real Minerva

Stunningly detailed richly plotted and emotionally engrossing The Real Minerva is the story of three women forging their own paths in a Midwestern farming community. In 1923 as book-loving Penny enters adolescence her mother Barbara pulls her out of school to send her to work. Destined to become a cleaning woman like her mother Penny sees no escape from her bleak existence until a scandalous figure arrives in the town of Minerva Minnesota: Cora very pregnant very headstrong and very alone has come to make a home on her grandfather''s farm. Intrigued by this curious new resident Penny sets out to work for Cora. Suspenseful and movingThe Real Minerva is a remarkable novel about the strength of women and the unexpected bonds that form between them.Mary Sharratt is the author of the much-acclaimed debut Summit Avenue and the forthcoming novel The Vanishing Point. A born-and-bred Minnesotan Sharratt drew on her mother''s and grandmother''s stories of Minnesota farm life in the early twentieth century for The Real Minerva. She now lives in Lancashire England.