Backseat Saints by Joshilyn Jackson

Ro Grandee is the perfect Texas housewife: she has to be, to avoid the worst of the beatings from her husband. The beatings she still endures without a word? ...well, she figures she deserves them.

Dropping off a neighbor at the airport, she has a chance encounter with a gypsy who tells her that it's either Ro or her husband - somebody's going to die.

At bedtime I picked up this book, and then forced myself to put it down 100 pages later. The rest, I read in a single sitting as soon as I could.

Joshilyn Jackson is my favorite "unknown" writer - she's written 4 books (each equally awesome) but she's not a household name. She should be - few authors write realistic, damaged, funny, heart-breaking, eccentric, but still-likeable characters as well. And her blog, Faster than Kudzu, is always good for a laugh. Jackson should be much, much more famous than she is.