"deep family drama"

Two years ago in Serenity, South Carolina, Dana Sue Sullivan caught her spouse Ron cheating and kicked him out of her home and her life. He knew he was wrong so he put up no fight and just left though that means he deserted their daughter too. After he departed in disgrace his wife developed an eating habit unable to resist her own delicious deserts at her café that has led to adult diabetes though she still cannot resist the sugar and worse their teenage daughter Annie became anorexic. As Dana Sue gains weight by noshing on her sweets in a dietary Dorian Gray scenario, Annie loses weight.

However, now Annie's condition has turned critical as she is hospitalized for the impact on her body her eating disorder has wrought. Desperate Dana Sue asks Ron to come home hoping her father might be able to save their daughter's life. Ron welcomes the chance to make amends as he knows he blew his slice of heaven when he cheated. His plan is to win back the love of his wife and daughter, but the guilt is compounded when he sees the condition of his little girl and making matters worse he does not understand he that both of his women never stopped loving him; instead he needs to gain their trust.

In spite of the help, encouragement, and admonishments of her two best friends Helen (next tale star) and Maddie (see STEALING HOME), Dana Sue knows Annie needs her father and she would do anything including begging him to come home for her. This is a deep family drama as the three prime players carry baggage that has turned them beyond dysfunctional into harming themselves. The look at diabetes and especially anorexia is as deep as a novel gets as this in trouble family is not starring in a rose colored tale; instead they each need to move past their recent history so that they might have a future.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted February 26, 2007

Summary

Dana Sue might run the best little restaurant in Serenity, but when you're feeding a small town of neighbors, busybodies and best friends, things can get a bit hot in the kitchen. Never mind that she's putting on too many pounds (an occupational hazard for a chef)—she's worried about her too-skinny teenage daughter, Annie, who has been slowly starving herself since the loud, suitcase-tossing, name-calling fit on her front lawn that left Dana Sue minus one cheating husband.

But sometimes life picks strange ways to mend fences. When Annie lands in the hospital, Dana Sue reaches out to the man she loves to hate: Ron, the husband who took her heart when she tossed him out. Ron is still Annie's white knight, even if he's decidedly more tarnished in Dana Sue's eyes. But he still looks good enough to eat, and maybe, just maybe, to forgive. Once, Ron made the mistake of letting go without a proper fight. But now Dana Sue is about to get another taste of sweet devotion from a man tired of feeling like a fool, hungry for that slice of heaven he found with her....