When Truly Plaice's mother was pregnant, the whole town of Aberdeen lined up to bet on the weight of the baby who could stretch a woman to such epic proportions. Young Truly would pay the price of her enormity. Her father blamed her for her mother's death in childbirth and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her older sister and polar opposite, Serena Jane, the epitome of feminine perfection. His early death would leave Serena Jane to a life of privilege as the town's May Queen and Truly to an existence with an outcast family on a rattletrap, rundown farm. While Truly's remarkable size makes her the subject of constant curiosity and humiliation, Serena Jane's beauty proves to be both a blessing and a curse. Being the prettiest girl in town will make her the obsession of Bob-Bob Morgan, the youngest in a line of Robert Morgans, Aberdeen's family doctors for generations. And Bob-Bob will set off a chain of events that change the destiny of all Aberdeen County. As Truly grows older - and ever larger - she will become linked to Serena Jane's fate ... and in a very different way from her sister's, become a target of Bob-Bob's intense interest. But when she uncovers the Morgan family secret, a centuries-old shadow book penned by the first doctor's witch-wife, Tabitha, she may have found the key to her own unique future. Armed with dangerous secrets from Aberdeen's past, Truly soon confronts life-altering moral decisions about whether or how she should use her newfound knowledge. As she practices her herbal healing, she is drawn ever more tightly into the circle of the town until she learns of a betrayal so huge, even she is dwarfed by it. In the end, Truly will be forced to face her own larger-than-life demons, redefine mercy, and consider the possibility that love cannot be ordered to size.
I've heard really good things about this book!
