Ashley Jordan’s Once Upon a Time in Dollywood is the latest pick for Reese Witherspoon’s book club.
Jordan’s debut novel, published Tuesday by Berkley, follows Eve Ambroise, a Haitian American playwright going through a series of personal crises who decamps to the Tennessee mountains, where she falls for the single father living next door.
Jordan was a fellow at Witherspoon’s LitUp program, which mentors unpublished women and nonbinary authors. Her novel is the second by a LitUp fellow to be chosen for Witherspoon’s book club, following Allison King’s The Phoenix Pencil Company, the club’s June pick.
Witherspoon announced the novel’s selection in a video on Instagram. “You guys, I read this book in one sitting,” she said. “It’s funny and it’s real, and you feel like you’re talking to one of your best friends.…Check out her book. It’s so good.”
Also on Instagram, Jordan reacted to her book’s selection with a clip of her smiling and the text, “You look happy AF. Thanks! IT’S BECAUSE I’M THE AUGUST PICK FOR REESE’S BOOK CLUB!”
In the caption, Jordan wrote, “Being a Reese’s Book Club author is really a dream come true. (Not joking when I say I even put it in my query letters.) I’m ecstatic that I’m finally able to bask in this news with you all!”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
