Leaving Cold Sassy: The Unfinished Sequal to ''Cold Sassy Tree'' (1992)

When Olive Ann Burns died in 1990, she had not finished this sequel to her blockbuster debut novel, Cold Sassy Tree. Set in Georgia during World War I and conceived, according to Burns, as the ''story of two people who marry, love, respect, appreciate, but are not in love'' with each other, Leaving Cold Sassy: The Unfinished Sequal to Cold Sassy Tree launches Will Tweedy into tumultuous adulthood with his schoolteacher wife. The patchwork story will have little appeal for the uninitiated, but for Cold Sassy devotees, it's a window onto Tweedy's future, and it comes with a bonus: a loving ''Reminiscence'' of Burns by her editor, Katrina Kenison. B+