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A Pearl for Kizzy cover art

A Pearl for Kizzy

By: Ed Bethune
Narrated by: Bailey Nassetta
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Publisher's Summary

Kizzy, a spirited child, lives with her family on a one-room ramshackle houseboat in Big Pearl, Arkansas. They fish, dig for mussels, look for pearls, and sell the shells to the button factory. It is a crude life made harder by the Great Depression, natural disasters, and prejudice.

At the onset of World War II, Kizzy befriends a young boy—a refugee from Nazi Germany—and a cultured young woman who encourages her to read and learn from Jane Austen’s books. Kizzy yearns for a better life, but as she comes of age, her dream of getting off the river is threatened by the evil Bully Bigshot and his Eugenics Center, a corrupt outfit that wants to rid the world of “river rats” like her through abortion and “better breeding.”

And there is Cormac, the lascivious man Kizzy calls her “make-do stepfather.” Kizzy’s struggle mimics today’s culture war. Daring, but realistic, the novel examines love, pride, compassion, courage, hope, morality, and duty—the things that inform and shape our destiny.

©2016 Ed Bethune (P)2023 Ed Bethune

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.