As The Table Turns — Cynn Chadwick

Dixie Stuart, Queen of the Southern Romance novel is forty-two, divorced, living in Manhattan, overweight, and custodial parent to an increasingly rebellious teenaged daughter. Against Dixie's will, her muse, Mary Nell Dupree, and heroine of each of Dixie's many books, has risen to knock out Dixie's seeming writer's block. When Dixie's sister calls from Virginia to beg Dixie to help with their aging father who is experiencing the onset of dementia, Dixie decides to pack up her daughter and return home. She arrives to find the once majestic farm of her childhood in as rapid decline as her dear daddy's mind. Dixie is determined to save both her father and his estate. As the Table Turns is a rollicky roll through the Shenandoah Valley which introduces us to a bevy of quirky Southern characters from Dixie's bosom-heaving bodice-ripping protagonist, her angst-ridden daughter, pesky ex-husband, dramatic sister, flamboyant brother, and demented daddy, but it is the reconnection with her once secret beau that has Dixie's own bosom heaving instead of her character's.