Karen Casey Fitzjerrell has just released another page-turner. Forgiving Effie Beck is set during the Great Depression in the small town of Cooperville, Texas. This is Fitzjerrell’s second novel. She writes with the heart of a true Texan who understands the nuances of life in small-town Texas where neighboring ranchers and farmers are the lifeline of the community. The story opens with Mike Lemay, a stranger who arrives on a government assignment (part of Roosevelt’s New Deal Federal Writer’s Project) to write the stories of Americans who are battling to survive during these most desperate times. Lemay soon realizes that there are stories folks are not telling; secrets too frightening to reveal. These untold tales, along with his feelings of having abandoned his family in North Carolina, begin to haunt him and he realizes he must face his own fears if he himself is to survive . 
One of my favorite lines in the book and one I feel represents the theme is: “Honest men are hard to scare.”
Fitzjerrell’s first novel, The Dividing Season, won the 2013 EPIC Award for Best Historical Fiction.