Hub City Press to publish award-winning author Julia Franks's second novel, The Say So

Hub City Press is proud to announce it will publish Julia Franks's second novel, The Say So. Julia Franks is the award-winning author of Over the Plain Houses, published by Hub City Press in 2016. The Say So will publish in 2023 as part of the Cold Mountain Fund Series in partnership with Charles Frazier.

For fans of Brit Bennett's The Mothers and Jennifer Weiner's Mrs. Everything, The Say So is a dual-timeline novel about two young women contending with unplanned pregnancies. 

Edie Carrigan didn't plan to "get herself" pregnant, much less to get stuck in a maternity home in 1950s North Carolina. But the staff keeps assuring her that they know what's best for her, that illegitimate pregnancy is best when kept secret, that they have psychiatric cures for wayward women, and that adoption is the best solution. They're also clear: one girl's independence can infect every other girl in the place. The only reason they even let her friend Luce Waddell visit is because she seems like she'll be a good influence. But Luce isn't the model citizen she seems, and she's never put much stock in convention, least of all in the absurdly Gothic maternity home where her best—and only—friend has been secretly squirreled away. Twenty-five years later, Luce needs to come to terms with the irony: her own daughter is facing some of the same decisions Edie did.

In the end, The Say So highlights the coming of age of the women’s movement and is a novel about female awakening, the way we negotiate communication and missed connections, and how we contend with the lasting reverberations of the choices we've made.

"I'm thrilled to be working with Hub City again," says Julia. "These guys are the very vanguard of Southern publishing, but they also have an old-fashioned appreciation for authors and booksellers and relationships. And, of course, the importance of story."

Julia Franks is the author of Over the Plain Houses (Hub City Press), an NPR Best Book of 2016 that was also awarded five prestigious literary prizes and included in many "best of" lists. She has also published essays in the New York Times and The Bitter Southerner, among other places. Her family has roots in the Southeast, though she was raised as an army “brat”, then spent years as a school teacher in the US and abroad, and now lives in Atlanta. She and her husband spend their free time camping, hiking, and kayaking in the mountains.