"Can you truly go home again?"

Can you truly go home again? That is the question facing Dixon Bell. He has been running from his one and only love Kate Bowdrey LaRue. There's just one small problem. Kate doesn't know that Dixon has loved her from afar for all these years.

When Dixon gets a letter from his grandmother Miss Daisy Crawford telling him that Kate is soon to be free again he decides that it's time to come home, and make his feelings known. Dixon arrives home, and finds that winning Kate isn't going to be easy, but he's determined to do so.

Kate who is not yet divorced from L.T. LaRue has many emotions to work through. The least is the way L.T. has treated her through the years of their marriage, and the months since their separation.

L.T. is the bad guy you love to hate. He tries to come between Kate and Dixon, by taking the one thing Dixon loves almost as much as he loves Kate...Magnolia Cottage.

It's while working together to save and preserve Dixon's ancenstral home that Kate and Dixon manage to work out their issues, and come to their happy ever after ending.

The Ballad Of Dixon Bell had all the suspense and romance of a longer book. I truly enjoyed this second installment in the At The Carolina Diner series. I look forward to digging through my personal TBR pile to find the first, and am anxiously awaiting the next.

Reviewed by Sandi Shilhanek
Posted March 2, 2003

Summary

Dixon Bell has loved Kate Bowdrey for as long as he can remember. Everybody in town knew him as the shy kid who carried around a guitar—and as the guy who disappeared after high school graduation. After thirteen years away—spent nursing a broken heart and becoming a successful songwriter—he's discovered that Kate is available again, so he's coming home to New Skye to make all his dreams come true.

But L. T. LaRue—Kate's soon-to-be ex-husband and one of the most powerful men in town—has other plans for Dixon. Dixon just happens to own a beautiful old plantation house, and L. T. wants to use that property for high-priced condos. And he wants Dixon to stay the hell away from Kate. But Dixon's not selling—he has big plans for that house, plans that include Kate and her kids. And he's certainly not giving up the woman he loves. Not again. Not without a fight.