Mississippi, 1987.

For women in the quiet town of Kosciusko, there’s only one surefire route to respectability: An invitation to join the City Garden Club. Rose Chipley feels certain of her chances- she comes from a good family, and her mother holds considerable sway among the ranks. So when Rose is denied membership, she’s devastated.

An alternative arrives on her doorstep (literally) in the form of the charismatic Bettye Little-Landrum, who has united a quartet of social outcasts to form a competing organization- THE ATTALA COUNTY GARDEN CLUB. Rose’s initial bliss in joining their ranks slowly gives way to trepidation as she’s exposed to some of their more curious practices- members are only allowed to garden at night, and their gardening methods are so specific, they almost feel like rituals.

Because Bettye’s garden club is a coven of witches.

And nobody leaves the coven.

Aided by her fellow club member, Danita Dixon, as well as an all-knowing hairdresser and several books on inter-library loan, Rose sets out to learn the secrets of Bettye’s past, and what magic she’ll require to stop the County Garden Club from exacting revenge on the town that did them wrong.

 

One of Topher Payne’s earliest works, available in print for the first time, this crossbreed of 1980s Southern comedy with supernatural pulp thrillers is a unique and beautiful bloom- casting a spell upon anyone who ever tried to fit in where they don’t belong, and then had to contend with getting exactly what they asked for.