Not just because she's a generous, insightful member of my monthly writer's group. Not just because her book won the coveted AWP award for the first novel. I fell in love with Ginger Eager's The Nature of Remains for the strong female characters and the unique place she writes about.
Not unusual for a Southern novelist to be enamored with place. Ginger Eager comes from Georgia and she set her novel in the fictional Georgia town of Flyshoals, but the larger setting of the book is its geological history. The soil in that part of Georgia is riddled with amethysts. The Nature of Remainsis about the people who circle that geological wealth, both the criminals who dig and sell it, and the families affected by their passion.