The Last Odd Day: A Novel

Hinton centers the story on Jean Witherspoon, a retired mill worker whose days revolve around visits to her ailing husband at Sunhaven Nursing Home. Forsyth County provides the setting when an unexpected caller named Lilly arrives from Durham, asking after the man Jean has loved for over half a century.

The novel follows the two women as they sift through keepsakes in a farm shed and confront a forty-year-old secret.

• Small Town Setting: Across the street from Jean’s quiet Piedmont home, an eccentric neighbor named Maude brews pine-straw remedies and predicts life-altering changes from her vivid water dreams.
• Family Secrets: Decades after a quiet grief divided Jean and O.T., an unexpected meeting with Lilly unearths a locked workbench safe holding old war medals and a faded hair ribbon.
• Found Family: Rather than harboring resentment, Jean welcomes her late husband’s daughter to her kitchen table, sharing slices of tart apple pie and stories of the mountain ancestors who shaped her.
• Inspirational Novel: Drawing comfort from Sunday worship at Sharpley Grove A.M.E. Zion Church, Jean reflects on an old Navajo weaving tradition that leaves an opening in the cloth for grief to escape.
• Also by This Author: Friendship Cake, Pie Town and Welcome Back to Pie Town.