There’s always a story somewhere…

If you’re a reader, you know that books have a way of talking back to you. Some books are meant to be read slowly, with time to settle into them. Others make us promise ourselves just one more chapter—three or four times. And some give us the opportunity to laugh and find humor in life.

We read to visit places we’ve never been, to meet people we might never have known, to wonder what happens next, or simply to step away from our own world for a little while. Sometimes we even come back looking at that world a little differently.

I’ve always believed the best stories begin with people. Give them a place to belong, a problem they weren’t expecting, and perhaps a secret or two, and sooner or later they’ll tell you where the story needs to go. It might lead somewhere dark and uncertain. It might wander straight into trouble. Or it might take an unexpected turn and leave you in the middle of a group of church ladies, only to discover you’ve been volunteered to bring the potato salad.

That’s much of what you’ll find in my fiction. There are small Southern communities where people know each other’s business—or think they do. There are mysteries to solve, old questions looking for answers, and strangers who may or may not be what they seem. There are also friendships, families, ordinary days, unexpected humor, and now and then a ghost who has apparently never heard that the dead are supposed to behave themselves.

But stories don’t live only in fiction.

Some of them happen while we’re busy living our lives. They’re found in gardens and kitchens, successes and spectacular failures, lessons we didn’t particularly want to learn, and ordinary moments we almost overlooked. My Simple Life books grew from those kinds of stories—from years of country living, trying things, getting some of them right, getting plenty of them wrong, and discovering along the way that a good life doesn’t have to be a complicated one.

The shelves here are a little varied. You’ll find mysteries and suspense beside books about simpler living. One may take you into a fictional Louisiana town with a murder to solve; another may send you into the kitchen, the garden, or simply give you something to think about over a quiet glass of sweet tea.

There isn’t any hurry. Look around. Read a little. Wander down whichever path catches your attention. The books aren’t going anywhere, and the door is always open.