by Sheri Holman
First published 2004
Margaret Pricket stands in her century-old Virginia dairy, watching debt consume everything her family built. The single mother has sheltered thirteen-year-old daughter Polly from the modern world, but the girl now gravitates toward a magnetic history teacher who challenges everything Margaret believes. August, her devoted farmhand who spends evenings impersonating Thomas Jefferson, harbors secret feelings for Margaret that complicate their working relationship. When the local pastor convinces Margaret to recreate the original 1,234-pound "Mammoth Cheese" from Jefferson's era as a presidential gift, the entire town of Three Chimneys rallies around the ambitious project. As Margaret pours herself into this monumental task, she discovers that saving her farm and her way of life demands choices between deeply held principles and unexpected desires that threaten to reshape her carefully ordered world.
Genres: romance, historical-fiction, 20th-century, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Three Chimneys, Virginia
Period: Jefferson's Era
468 pages · Paperback · Virago