The Great Wherever

THE DEAD ARE RELENTLESS GOSSIPS, OR AT LEAST THESE DEAD ARE.

A year after her father’s death, Aubrey learns she has inherited a share of a farm on the sun-streaked plains of Tennessee. Seeking a way to erase a mounting pile of debt, she travels South to meet a family she barely knows.
Watching her arrival are four ghosts: Aubrey’s ancestors, and the keepers of the farm’s secrets. As Aubrey gets to know her living relatives, the story of the land unfolds - her great-grandfather who bought it, one of the first Black landowners in the community, the four children set to inherit it, their bitter rivalries, and a tragedy that echoes through the decades...
With the sale of the farm looming, the ghosts face exile, and Aubrey must decide how much of her future she is willing to sacrifice to the claims of the past.
Dazzling and expansive, The Great Wherever is a multigenerational portrait of the American South, exploring land and legacy, race and generational wealth, and the sharp fragments of the past – how they spark and shine against the surface of our ordinary lives.

'This book is a pleasure and a treasure' TAYARI JONES, Women's Prize-winning author of An American Marriage and Kin

'An epic and deeply human story' PATRICK RYAN, author of the international bestseller Buckeye

'A gift of a book' VANESSA CHAN, author of the international bestseller The Storm We Made

'Gripping, moving, witty, and wise, this is historical fiction at its finest' MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON, author of On the Rooftop, a Reese’s Book Club Pick

'I felt dazzled and . . . in awe of all its beauty and magic' DAWNIE WALTON, Women's Prize-longlisted author of The Final Revival of Opal & Nev

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© Shannon Sanders 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026