Chimes from a Cracked Southern Belle

Most people think the reason Prudy Millings married the best-looking preacher in the Carolinas—who inexplicably turned psychotic and mowed her down with the church van—is that she was raised all wrong. So not true.

Prudy's reclamation of her life begins two years after the crime spree that nearly stopped her heart. She packs up her two precocious children and settles in her parents' South Carolina hometown where she deals with a delightful, Proverbs-spewing mama who pretends her grown daughters are virgins.

There, in the quirky cocoon of family support, Prudy finds new purpose for herself and her children, discovering joy in places she never expected it:

In a nursing home where she tends to the likes of 104-year-old Annie Sue who loves Posh Spice, still drives her ancient Skylark, and has a hankering for cold draft beer.

In crashing funerals with her sex-kitten Aunt Weepie who attends funerals just to get the covered-dish meals afterward, even though she has no idea who's in the coffins.

As Prudy begins a journey toward recovery and becoming a registered nurse, a dark secret surfaces, one that if handled right, could be her ticket to allowing herself to love again.