FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Page & Palette, 32. S. Section St. in Fairhope, will host author Amanda C. Gable on Thursday, Dec. 17, from 5-7 p.m. She will be speak and sign copies of her first novel, “The Confederate General Rides North,” at the downtown  Fairhope bookstore.

Page & Palette is very fortunate to have secured Gable for this event, as this novel was included in a Newly Released Books column by Patricia Cohen in The New York Times and has also been reviewed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The story is set in 1960s Georgia and tells of 11-year-old Katherine McConnell, a precocious Civil War buff, who is so fascinated by stories of the war’s generals that she often imagines herself one of them: riding her pony, leading troops to battle.

When Kat’s mother wakes her early one morning for an impromptu road trip north to find antiques for a shop she wants to open, Kat seizes the opportunity for real adventure. It will be just her, her mother, and their Chevy Impala.

As the navigator, Kat cleverly charts a course that takes them to battlefields and historic sites, following the path of her heroes. She hopes the trip also will provide her beautiful, impulsive mother the means for success.

But as they travel farther from home, Kat discovers that each stop brings not only new experiences but new questions. Unexpected revelations test her faith in her mother, her understanding of the war, and her confidence in the trip’s outcome; neither her mother’s intentions nor the glory and adventure depicted in her history books are quite what they had seemed.

When their journey comes to an abrupt halt in Gettysburg and Kat faces the threat of real tragedy, she must make an irrevocable choice about where their ultimate destination — and her loyalty — lies.

An utterly original, richly imagined novel about mothers and daughters, the stories we revere, the legacies we inherit, and the ache of growing up too soon, “The Confederate General Rides North” introduces an enormously talented new voice in Southern fiction and a captivating, unforgettable young heroine.

Gable’s short stories have appeared in “The North American Review,” “The Crescent Review,” “Quarry West,” “Sinister Wisdom,” “Hurricane Alice,” “North Dakota Quarterly,” “Art Times,” “Kalliope,” “Other Voices” and elsewhere.

She has been awarded residency fellowships by Yaddo, the Hambidge Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Nominated twice for a Pushcart, she has been awarded grants for her fiction by the Georgia Council for the Arts, the city of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs, and the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund.

She received her interdisciplinary Ph.D. in American literature and feminist studies from Emory University and has taught at Denison University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

She is at work on a second novel and a non-fiction book about independent bookstores.

Currently, she is an master in fine arts candidate in creative writing at Georgia State University and recipient of the Paul Bowles Graduate Fellowship in Fiction Writing.

A native of Marietta, she lives in Decatur, Ga.

The author will exclusively sign all books purchased from Page & Palette.

For more information, call (251) 928-5295.