Girls with Long Shadows

Girls with Long Shadows is Southern Gothic with a sly, wild heart.

Set in a sweltering corner of the rural South where girls come of age under the weight of heat, silence, and family legacy, Tennessee Hill's novel follows triplet girls navigating desire, danger, and the unspoken rules that govern their small-town world. There are echoes of The Virgin Suicides and Where the Crawdads Sing, but Hill's voice is all her own: sharp, lyrical, and laced with something just a little wicked.

These girls were raised by their maternal grandmother and adopted younger brother, Gull. They come of age — but one less quietly than the others. Set against late-night rituals, secret river spots, and the wreckage of girlhood, Hill writes with the kind of raw, precise detail that makes you wince and lean in closer. Her South is not based in nostalgia — it's thorny, haunted, and full of long shadows.

If you like your fiction bold and a little reckless — books that smell like cigarette smoke and honeysuckle — Girls With Long Shadows should be at the top of your list for the summer.

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