Product Description

Miss Peggy, Dr. Maggie, and Miss Li’l Bit, friends and confidantes for nearly a lifetime, find it funny and bewildering that they have become icons in Charles Valley, Georgia. Little does the rest of the town know that beneath the irreproachable façades of its three doyennes lies an explosive decades-old secret that is about to be revealed.

Thirty-odd years ago the three Miss Margarets did something extraordinary, clandestine, and very illegal. Although they are haunted by the night that changed their lives, they believe that their crime was simply a matter of righting an egregious wrong. But when a stranger’s arrival in town and a tragic death open the floodgate of memory, their loyalty, friendship, and honor are tested in ways they could never have imagined—particularly when they have to contend with Laurel Selene, a young woman who has spent her life nursing an alcoholic mother and a huge grudge. Now Laurel is on the verge of discovering what happened the night the three Miss Margarets swore their oath of secrecy. Once she knows, will she reveal the truth about the three women she was raised to despise? Or will she face her own troubled history and put the dark legacy they all share behind them?

The Three Miss Margarets is an irresistible, page-turning exploration of the past and the myriad ways it exerts a hold on the present.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1171452 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-01
• Released on: 2003-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Three elderly white Georgia women, all named Margaret, share a deep friendship and a dark secret in this winning debut by actress and television writer Shaffer. For reasons not entirely clear even to her, Laurel Selene McCready has inherited her mother's grudge against "the three Miss Margarets," upstanding icons in rural Charles Valley. Returning home drunk late one night, she spies the three ladies congregating unaccountably in a deserted cabin. The body of Vashti Johnson, a renowned African-American geneticist who had returned to Charles Valley to visit her mother, is soon discovered in the cabin, prompting an investigation by the police, as well as by Laurel Selene and her new boyfriend Josh, a journalist who's writing a book about Vashti. As the three Miss Margarets struggle with how much to reveal about Vashti's life and death, they also reflect on their own longtime intimacy and on the race hatred in their community that led, decades ago, to a series of ghastly crimes. Shaffer's achievement is making each Miss Margaret a complex character with a fiercely guarded interior life. She doesn't belabor the social forces that defined the lives of these doyennes; instead, she gradually reveals Dr. Maggie Harris's lesbian love life, Margaret (Li'l Bit) Hanning's decadelong affair with a redneck gardener and Peggy Garrison's embattled domestic arrangement. Sometimes Shaffer leans too much on heavy-handed foreshadowing, and the secondary characters are thin, especially Laurel Selene and Josh. Yet the three Miss Margarets are wholly imagined, rich creations whose reticence speaks volumes about their time and place.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Thirty years ago, the leading ladies of Charles Valley, GA, did something terribly wrong for a very good reason. Now their secret is about to pop out.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Secrets are kept in small southern towns as they are nowhere else. In Charles Valley, Georgia, it is the three Miss Margarets-- "little old ladies with pedigrees"--who not only held secrets but also lied to do what they thought was right. Li'l Bit Banning and Dr. Maggie Harris are from old families, and Peggy Garrison married into the town's wealthiest clan. Things come to a head when Vashti Johnson, an African American who became a renowned scientist, comes home to die at the same time a New Yorker writing a biography of Vashti turns up asking questions. And Laurel McCready, whose poor, white-trash, unwed mother blamed the three Miss Margarets for the ills in her life, wants the truth about how her father was killed before she was born. Shaffer unravels this tale with skill, building enough sense of foreboding to be enticing as she reveals the backgrounds of the major characters and the decades-old rape and murders and brings it all to a satisfying conclusion. This has likely appeal to book groups. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Three Cheers for the Three Miss Margarets
I started this book on the recommendation of a friend and couldn't put it down once I started. The titular Three Miss Margarets are fascinating women, described in beautiful detail by Louise Shaffer. There is a good old-fashioned mystery behind the secret the three women share, but I read the book not just to find out what they were hiding but to get to know them better. And I did. Some moments in their lives broke my heart, some ticked me off. But I always felt. It's a wonderful writer who can not just pique your curiosity but move you emotionally, and Louise Shaffer does just that. I've passed this book along to a number of friends and family members who have all shared the same opinion.

Simply Outstanding
Not often am I moved to write a review of a book, even though I read constantly, but there was no question I had to write in for "The Three Miss Margarets." This book is outstanding in every way: the quality of writing, the story, the characters. Never has a story so well portrayed the strength and character of the women of the south. They have to make this into a movie, it is THAT good.

I certainly hope that Ms. Shaffer writes more like this one!

What a great read
The Three Miss Margarets is an outstanding novel that keeps the reader turning pages into the night. While it could be called Southern gothic, it has a different plot twist that is totally unexpected. The characters are marvelous--surely they live just down the street; we know them all. The writing is crisp and clear, the dialogue and settings realistic, and the cliff hangers at the end of each chapter make it difficult to put the book down. I enjoyed this novel more than any I have read all summer--and I read a lot. Great job. I hope we hear more from Louise Shaffer.