Celia at 39: A Novel

Celia Bernhart, on the cusp of turning 39, thinks her life is all planned out. She has a successful career selling pharmaceuticals. She's about to marry her longtime fiance, a doctor. Oh, sure, her mother and her two sisters drive her nuts, but that's normal, right? Then a package unexpectedly shows up at her door -- the address is correct but it was mailed nearly forty years earlier, to another woman, whose whereabouts are now a mystery. Inside is a curious old cookbook, along with a sealed note from a daughter to her mother. Celia decides to deliver the package to its rightful recipient. Instead she finds the woman's grandson, Dante Zebulon, the pitmaster of a small barbecue joint nestled in the Appalachians, a man who literally plays with fire, and who juggles cooking classic Southern barbecue with raising a young daughter alone. When the note reveals a long-kept family secret -- and when sparks fly between Celia and Dante -- it's not just Celia's life that gets turned upside down. Soon the future for all becomes a question mark.