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  • The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

  • By: Rebecca Wells
  • Narrated by: Judith Ivey
  • Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder

By: Rebecca Wells
Narrated by: Judith Ivey
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Editorial reviews

Ever since Shelby Eatenton told her mother M'Lynn her colors were blush and bashful in Truvy's Beauty Salon, southern belles have been all the rage. It may be true that the North won the war, but the South definitely won the right to tell the story.

In her follow up to Little Altars Everywhere, Rebecca Wells of YaYa Sisterhood fame brings us another steely flower in The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder. With a naturally elegant southern accent, Judith Ivey shows us the world of La Luna, Louisiana, through the eyes and ears of Calla Lily.

Crowning Glory is a story of all the different kinds of love you can hold in your heart for family, girlfriends, a boy named Tuck and what to do when it all falls apart. In her narration, Ivey imperceptibly shifts the tone of her voice to match the rise and fall of Calla's innocent wonder, puppy love excitement, deep grief, heartbreak, and hope.

There is also an edge in Ivey's voice that gives sound to the earthiness and humidity of La Luna by day and the moonlight which bathes it each night. Ivey also provides the voice of the "Moon Lady", the feminine force which guides Calla through her idyllic childhood, the sudden loss of her exuberant and passionate mother, and her discovery of the healing power of her own hands to do hair.

Ivey carries us from the tiny hamlet of La Luna to the big, bustling city of New Orleans, where Calla finds her professional calling as a hair stylist and rediscovers her lost love Tuck. If you want to know how it ends you will just have to put in your earbuds and grab a fan for a trip with Judith Ivey and Rebecca Wells to Louisiana. Sarah Evans Hogeboom

Publisher's Summary

Known for her beloved Ya-Ya books ( Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Little Altars Everywhere, and Ya-Yas in Bloom), Rebecca Wells has helped women name, claim, and celebrate their shared sisterhood for over a decade.

Now Wells debuts an entirely new cast of characters in this shining stand-alone novel about the pull of first love, the power of life, and the human heart's vast capacity for healing.

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder is the sweet, sexy, funny journey of Calla Lily's life set in Wells's expanding fictional Louisiana landscape. In the small river town of La Luna, Calla bursts into being, a force of nature as luminous as the flower she is named for. Under the loving light of the Moon Lady, the feminine force that will guide and protect her throughout her life, Calla enjoys a blissful childhood - until it is cut short. Her mother, M'Dear, a woman of rapture and love, teaches Calla compassion, and passes on to her the art of healing through the humble womanly art of "fixing hair". At her mother's side, Calla further learns that this same touch of hands on the human body can quiet her own soul.

It is also on the banks of the La Luna River that Calla encounters sweet, succulent first love, with a boy named Tuck. But when Tuck leaves Calla with a broken heart, she transforms hurt into inspiration and heads for the wild and colorful city of New Orleans to study at L'Académie de Beauté de Crescent.

In that extravagant big river city, she finds her destiny - and comes to understand fully the power of her "healing hands" to change lives and soothe pain, including her own. When Tuck reappears years later, he presents her with an offer that is colored by the memories of lost love. But who knows how Cally Lily, a "daughter of the Moon Lady", will respond?

©2009 Rebecca Wells (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews

"The novel is chock-full of Southern charm and sassy wisdom." ( Publishers Weekly)

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