Chapters 1-2 Summary

A Virtuous Woman is the second novel from award-winning author Kaye Gibbons. Ruby Stokes is a woman who was raised in the safety of a loving family, who learns that the world has a dark side when she impetuously marries the first man to ask. Ruby is dragged onto the migrant workers circuit and forced to work manual labor by her lazy, abusive husband. When her husband dies unexpectedly, Ruby is faced with the choice of going home in shame or marrying a local man who has taken an interest in her. Ruby chooses marriage, settling into a good life with a man who is deeply devoted to her. A Virtuous Woman is a novel of second chances and love, a novel that will touch the heart of even the most cynical reader.

Blinking Jack Stokes's wife, Ruby, died of lung...