A Virtuous Woman

I am dipping into my to-be-read pile for my V entry for the A-Z Wednesday reading challenge. For ages, I have been meaning to read Kaye Gibbon's A Virtuous Woman and I just never seem to get around to it. Maybe this is the push I need.

Here's what Publishers Weekly had to say about A Virtuous Woman:
Jack Stokes and Ruby Pitt weave this strong, tightly knit love story in alternating chapters that begin when Jack, grieving over Ruby's death four months earlier, evokes the past. In flashbacks, the two richly cadenced Southern voices explore their vastly differing backgrounds, troubled histories and their unlikely but loving marriage. Born into a proud, prominent country family, coddled and adored, Ruby stuns her parents and two brothers by inexplicably running off with John Woodrow, a migrant worker who savagely abuses her. When John is killed in a brawl, Ruby, too proud to ask her family for help, begins doing housework for the wealthy Hoover family, where she meets Jack, a laconic, immensely capable tenant farmer on the Hoover land. He is 40; she is 20. Both lonely and vulnerable, they regard each other cautiously, carry on a wary courtship and embark on a firmly grounded marriage. The union is enriched by a small, supportive circle of friends, who, like the couple's landlord, Burr, are sharply etched and convincingly drawn.

This is the type of book I really enjoy -- great characters who face their share of troubles, with a love story at the heart of the novel. Good stuff. Now I just have to move it to the top of my TBR pile!