Josie Caldwell teaches piano in the same room above the hardware store where her grandmother taught before her, in a little town in the Tennessee hills where everybody knows everybody's business. Twice a year, while she's at her morning job at the library, a piano tuner she has never met lets himself in with the key under the mat. This spring, he left something behind.

A new installment on the 1st and 15th of every month.

A few words from me. I'm Darla Jean, 54 years old, a church secretary in East Tennessee, married to my Raymond for thirty-three years, mother of two grown girls and grandmother of one perfect baby boy. I have read romance novels since I was a teenager hiding them inside my geometry book, and I've always wanted to write one where nobody has to take their clothes off to fall in love. My mother could read every word of my stories, and so can yours.

Some of you have been reading with me since January, when I started my first serial, Magnolia Summer. It finished in July after twelve parts, and I've taken it down for now because my daughter is helping me print it up into a little book for the ladies at church for Christmas, and we are fixing all my mistakes. (There were a lot of commas.) Thank you for every sweet letter about Lila and Hank. Yes, they got married. I would never do that to you.