Penelope J. Stokes

Dell Haley's mama always told her there were two things a man couldn't get enough of: good cookin' and good lovin'. Dell has the cooking down pat -- the proof is in her fried apple pies. But she suspects her husband is getting more than his fair share of loving -- she just doesn't know where. And when he turns up dead, Dell's predictable life begins to crumble. Short on money and education, Dell turns to the one thing that has never let her down:...

Twenty-three years ago, beauty queen Peach Rondell left Mississippi and vowed never to return. Now, divorced and heartbroken, she's back and trying to figure out how her life went so miserably wrong, and how to put the pieces back together again. To escape her mama's scrutinizing gaze, she spends her days in a little storefront diner called the Heartbreak Café, where, in the back booth, she scribbles away in her journal, waiting for enlightenment....

Diedre McAlister, haunted by a dream in which she is playing with her sister who died years earlier, embarks on a search into her own past and family secrets when she is given a photograph by her dying mother and a challenge to find the truth.