Mary Ashleigh Green
Novalee Nation is a 17-year-old Tennessee transient who has to grow up in a hurry when she’s left pregnant and abandoned by her boyfriend on a roadside in Sequoyah, Okla., and takes refuge in the friendly aisles of Wal-Mart. In short order, some eccentric, kindly strangers “adopt” Novalee and her infant daughter, helping them buck the odds and build a new life.
Threats from sinister foreign nationals aren’t the only thing to fear. Bedraggled college professor Michael Faraday has been vexed (and increasingly paranoid) since his wife’s accidental death in a botched FBI operation. But all that takes a backseat when a seemingly all-American couple set up house next door.