The Orange Blossom Special by Betsy Carter (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $23.95)
"She balanced the giant atlas on her knees and, using St. Augustine as the starting point, made a circle with her fingers north to Jacksonville, west to Tallahassee, and south to Sarasota. As she leafed through the reference books and read about the cities on the map, she found herself staring at pictures of Alachua County, swampy Alachua County, where the sun shining through the moss-covered oaks cast a filigree shadow on the boggy earth. Alachua County, whose name came from the Seminole-Creek word meaning 'jug,' which referred to a large sinkhole that eventually formed a prairie.
'What a beautiful place,' she thought to herself, pushing aside any doubts about an area that was essentially named after a sinkhole. Then she read that Gainesville, in the heart of the county, was home to one of the largest universities in the United States. Pictures of the red brick Century Tower at the University of Florida reminded her how much she liked being part of a college town. It gave her status, she thought. People in Carbondale assumed other people in Carbondale had been schooled there, or were in some way a part of the university. She liked the exposure that Dinah got to higher education, and it thrilled her that Dinah might be the first in their family to go to college.
Could Gainesville be the place, she wondered.
Just by asking the question, she knew she'd already answered it." --excerpted from the book
