Girls in trucks - Katie Crouch

In this tender debut, a less-than-perfect debutante decamps South Carolina for a life in New York City.

There, she tries to make sense of city sophistication and to understand the strange and rarefied world she's left behind.

Sarah Walters is a less-than-perfect debutante.

She tries hard to follow the time-honored customs of the Charleston Camellia Society, as her mother and grandmother did, standing up straight in cotillion class and attending lectures about all the things that Camellias don't do.

(Like ride with boys in pickup trucks.

) But Sarah can't quite ignore the barbarism just beneath all that propriety, and as soon as she can she decamps South Carolina for a life in New York City.

There, she and her fellow displaced Southern friends try to make sense of city sophistication, to understand how much of their training applies to real life, and how much to the strange and rarefied world they've left behind.

When life' s complications become overwhelming, Sarah returns home to confront with matured eyes the motto Once a Camellia, always a Camellia -- and to see how much fuller life can be, for good and for ill, among those who know you best.

Girls in Trucks introduces an irresistable, sweet, and wise voice that heralds the arrival of an exciting new talent.