In The Dream Bucket, Trudy Cameron, lives in an elaborate Mississippi home with her hypocritical father William, withdrawn mother Zoe, and mischievous older brother Billy Jack. It is the spring of 1909. The last session ever at Gravel Hill School comes to a close, as Trudy looks forward to her tenth birthday. She adores Papa until she hears him slap her mother for asking him where he hides his cash. Soon afterwards, Billy Jack tells Trudy that Papa ridicules her behind her back. On the last day of school, Papa gives the schoolmarm a noisy smack of a kiss, overheard by all the pupils in the...

--Two decades after the birth of Christ Abi, a Nubian archer of Jewish background, resides in Meroe, a city-state in the general vicinity of Ethiopia. Once a member of a group of archers in training for the royal army, she has been dismissed from the palace because she is considered too attractive to be a good soldier. In her family's home, she receives abuse from her father and unkindness from her stepmother. Melech, a eunuch slave, loves her the way a gentle father would love his daughter. Abi helps him take care of the goats. --Negasi, Abi's father, swaps treasures with travelers....

Loretta Larson, a southern lady in the early 1900's, has everything she needs except a man. Ensnared by memories of lost romance, limited by codes of etiquette, and unimpressed by the eligible suitors in her town, she pursues an escape from her solitary life. Where can she find a man who will accept her quirks? He also must appreciate the refinements of culture. Not only must her man love her. He must nurture her efforts to fix what she sees wrong in her world-inadequate education, denied voting rights, and animosity toward impoverished Italian immigrants. One more requirement-he must be...

The book, Covington Chronicles III and IV, contains two works -- The Dream Bucket and Manuela Blayne -- in one volume. The Dream Bucket: Ten-year-old Trudy loves Papa more than anybody else until she hears him slap Zoe, her mother. She is so angry at him she wishes he'd die. When he accidentally sets fire to the family mansion and dies in the fire, she is not prepared for the shock. William has cautioned Zoe not to pry into his financial arrangements. She wants to know where he keeps his money in case his life should end. How will she survive as a widow? The family has nowhere to call home...