THE HATWEARER’S LESSON

Ain’t nothing like the real thing.

Terri Mills has it all: degree from Harvard, career at a prestigious law firm that includes high-stakes deal-making for the city of Chicago, and the perfect man: Derek Houser, a lawyer with a politician’s charisma. Being black meant being the best—and nothing’s ever slowed Terri down. But her Grandma Ollie, who raised her, has been seeing signs—and there’s no arguing with the old lady. Didn’t she foretell that her only daughter would die while giving birth to Terri, and didn’t it happen? Now that Terri and Derek are engaged, Grandma Ollie has to write their names in the old family Bible, but the pen runs out of ink before she can add Derek’s name. So she’s not surprised when Terri finds out that Derek’s been cheating on her and calls off the engagement. Then Grandma Ollie shatters her hip in a fall, and Terri goes back to Arkansas to care for her. The old woman floats in and out of consciousness and recalls her own lost love: Hank, a honey gatherer for a local farmer, the sweetest man she ever knew. But he had to disappear after the farmer tried to burn him to death in a barn, and Ollie married Wesley, another good man. Now, even when all hell breaks loose back in the city’s legal department, Terri stays on, soaking up the atmosphere and memories of the small town and learning more about her roots. Lynnwood Conway, a hospital volunteer, reads aloud to her grandmother, and Terri just melts at the sound of his deep voice. But can she really love a country boy like Lynnwood, who’s got nothing but a pickup truck and the farmhouse his parents left him?

Warmhearted country romance, from the author of, most recently, Bebe’s By Golly Wow (2000).