Susan Wittig Albert

Rumors are sprouting in Depression-era Darling, Alabama. The town's newest visitors, Nona Jean Jamison and Miss Lake, may be the Naughty and Nice Sisters from the Ziegfeld Frolic, who specialize in dancing nearly naked. The Dahlias suspect more than modesty when Nona denies her association.

It's Labor Day weekend, 1935, and members of the Darling Dahlias--the garden club in little Darling, Alabama--are trying to keep their cool at the end of a sizzling summer. This isn't easy, though, since there's a firebug on the loose in Darling. He--or she!--strikes without apparent rhyme or reason, and things have gotten to the point where nobody feels safe. What's more, a dangerous hurricane is poised to hurl itself in Darling's direction, while...

The ladies of the Darling Dahlias garden club investigate a suspicious car wreck, the news of an escaped convict from the prison farm, and a ghost digging around the cucumber tree.

"It's the spring of 1933 and times are tough all over. The only businessman not struggling is moonshiner Mickey LeDoux, though he still has to steer clear of federal agents. But banks are closing all over the country, and the small town of Darling is no exception. Folks are suddenly caught short on cash and everyone is in a panic. Desperate to avoid disaster, several town leaders--including Alvin Duffy, the bank's new vice president--hatch a plan...

"It looks like the music has ended for Darling's favorite barbershop quartet, the Lucky Four Clovers - just days before the Dixie Regional Barbershop Competition. Another unlucky break: a serious foul-up in Darling's telephone system - and not a penny for repairs. And while liquor is legal again, moonshine isn't. Sheriff Buddy Norris needs a little luck when he goes into Briar Swamp to confront Cypress County's most notorious bootlegger. What he finds...

"... China comes to the aid of a nurse who ends up in the hospital ... It's mid-April in Pecan Springs, and China is renting her guest cottage to Kelly Kaufman, who needs a temporary place to live as she contends with a very acrimonious divorce from her husband, Rich. One nasty point of dispute is her part ownership of the Comanche Creek Brewing Company, which she is refusing to sell. At the same time, as a nurse employed by a local hospice, Kelly...

While getting some much needed rest and assisting with some herbal workshops, China Bayles stumbles over old secrets in a Kentucky Shaker village after a shocking death occurs during her stay.

China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have been keeping as many secrets as he seemed determined to uncover. How deep do the layers of secrecy go? And who has a stake in concealing the truth after sixteen years? --From amazon.com.

Best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert is especially beloved for creating herbalist and ex-lawyer China Bayles, hailed by Publishers Weekly as "in a class with lady sleuths V.I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum." In Widow's Tears, China has urgent business to discuss with Ruby, a friend gifted with extrasensory perception. Meeting Ruby at a supposedly haunted house, China soon uncovers a mystery that may be linked to a deadly robbery that very night....

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of 1932 Democratic candidate FDR, the women become deeply, intimately involved.