This dual timeline novel, a Southern coming of age wrapped in the arms of modern romance, takes you to 1950’s rural Florida with tobacco farming, natural springs, grudges between neighbors, pet chickens, and a very questionable murder.

Finley McKay suffered youth on her grandmother’s farm with poverty, racism, and bigotry. When stalked by an ex-con uncle, she does the unthinkable for the time - she seeks refuge with Ruby, a black midwife in the area, and they form a lifelong bond. After experiencing nothing but death and heartache at Granny’s derelict shack, she leaves home, works her way through college, and lives a contented if boring life. 

After decades away, she reluctantly returns to the now abandoned farm where she meets Alan, a neighbor who wants to  restore her house. Initially aloof, she breaks down bit by bit and eventually shares stories of the personal nightmare and area turmoil that caused her to turn her back on the farm, but she can’t open up about the murder. Finn falls totally in love with Alan and just when she is deliriously happy for the first time in her life, he shares a secret that sends her running away once again, leaving everything she has come to care about. He isn’t the only one with secrets; deathbed confessions by Ruby shatter everything Finn ever knew about herself and family.

Book is hot off the writer's fingers and not in print at this time.