“Brilliant. . . . .a classic Southern tale. . . . The author’s gift for giving life to so many voices leaves the reader profoundly moved.” —Seattle Weekly

The companion novel to Rebecca Wells’s celebrated #1 New York Times bestseller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

Who can resist the rich cadences of Sidda Walker and her flamboyant, secretive mother, Vivi? Here, the young Sidda—a precocious reader and an eloquent observer of the fault lines that divide her family—leads us into her mischievous adventures at Our Lady of Divine Compassion parochial school and beyond. A Catholic girl of pristine manners, devotion, and provocative ideas, Sidda is the very essence of childhood joy and sorrow.

Little Altars Everywhere is an insightful, piercing, and unflinching evocation of childhood, a loving tribute to the transformative power of faith, and a thoroughly fresh chronicle of a family that is as haunted as it is blessed.

“The trials and triumphs of a fascinating but extremely dysfunctional family. . . . an essential purchase for all popular fiction collections.” —Library Journal

“Wells's people pop with life.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Just wonderful!” —Pat Conroy, New York Times bestselling author of Prince of Tides