Patricia Hickman’s funny and tender perceptions take us deep into the inner life of families and the secrets they keep.
4 Stars! Award-winning author Hickman weaves a wonderful tale of women who have triumphed over adversity in this sensitive, caring, heartfelt story. It’s a story readers will remember long after they have finished the book.” ~ ROMANTIC TIMES
In this benevolent picaresque of sisterhood and unexpected paths, a southern woman, Gaylen, whose marriage is unraveling, is shocked to find a trail of family secrets hidden within her aunt’s odd collection of framed and painted dresses. Burdened with the additional chore of looking after her grown sister Delia who seems to delight in attracting trouble–and the wrong kind of men–Gaylen embarks on a road trip that throws the sisters into a journey that leads to painful understanding and delightful revelations.
Genre: Southern Literary Fiction
Popular with Book Clubs
” Hickman gamely unpacks the lies families tell each other, the cost of family secrets to ourselves and others, the bonds between sisters and the walls between husbands and wives. Her sparkling talent is evident in this engrossing story.” –Publishers Weekly
“Painted Dresses is both wise and witty, full of living, breathing people, rather than cardboard characters. I’m sure I went to high school with Gaylen, dated Braden, partied with Delia, and ran away from Freddy—that’s how convincingly they leaped off the page. Amusing at one turn, sobering the next, Painted Dresses captures life in all of its messy glory. A wonderful novel from a uniquely gifted storyteller.” –Liz Curtis Higgs, author of Grace in Thine Eyes
“Gaylen is the responsible sister; Delia the impulsive younger. With only parentage in common, a vague but troubling memory, the two find themselves thrown together, chasing clues to their childhood anger while staying two steps ahead of a hired killer. Patricia Hickman writes from the heart. I could not put it down.” –Lawana Blackwell, author of The Gresham Chronicles.
“With engaging characters–quircky, flawed, but endearing–a vivid sense of place, and wonderfully droll, tell-it-like-it-is narrator in Gaylen Boatwright, Painted Dresses is the ideal book to lose yourself in on a rainy–or any–day.” –Naeem Murr, author of The Boy, The Genius of the Sea, and The Perfect Man
