Miss Emma's Regret

By Jo Anne Barnes

She danced when the church told her to stop, married a near stranger on impulse to escape her overbearing father, and built a dairy farm from nothing. Now at eighty-seven, Emma Sullivan Sharpe faces her toughest opponent yet: her five remaining daughters. As the pressure to move her to a nursing home reaches a fever pitch, Emma retreats to the only place they can't find her-the past.

There, in the red dirt of early twentieth century Mississippi, a younger Emma comes alive-the teenager expelled from her church, the girl who married at sixteen to escape her father and paid for it in quiet ways for decades. Based on a true story. the intergenerational tension between a mother who has survived everything and daughters worn down by caregiving is both tender and painfully real. Now Emma must decide what her stubbornness is costing the people she loves most. Miss Emma's Regret is a richly layered novel about memory, motherhood, and the truths families tell themselves when the real truth is too much to bear.

Perfect for readers of Southern literary fiction and emotionally rich family dramas.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H397G6YN
• ISBN13: 9798256044626
• Release Date: May 2026
• Publisher: Jo Anne Barnes
• Length: 212 Pages
• Weight: 0.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.0"