Everyone in Hawthorn, Georgia believes Vera Black is dead. Everyone, that is, except her twelve-year-old daughter, Eleanor. Six years have passed since Vera vanished after work one day, and Eleanor, who helps her father run the family bookshop, secretly believes that Vera abandoned them. When she discovers a draft of an old novel hidden in a secret desk compartment, a story tied to the strange death of another Hawthorn woman, Eleanor finds herself caught up in a mystery that causes her to rethink everything she believes about her mother.

At eighty years old, Ruby Hurst has lived under the shadow of her mother Alice's mysterious death since she was a child. What she witnessed on the day Alice drowned has cast a shadow over everything Ruby loves, and she looks forward to the day when she will leave Hawthorn, and everyone in it, behind. Until one day, when Eleanor Black shows up with a long-lost novel and breaks apart the carefully constructed world Ruby has hidden within for decades.

A warm, tender novel exploring the bounds of family, community, and love in unexpected places, The Bluestockings is a story for everyone who has ever hoped, even when all hope seemed lost.