Bøger i The Florida Panhandle Hooch Se serien

With the arrival of a new generation of the Davis-Lewis family, and the opening of an upscale day spa, confidence is finally returning to the small Florida town of Chattahoochee. The triumph over the vicious hate crime that crippled Jake Witherspoon has become a subtle right of passage, hardly mentioned in the day to day hustle and bustle of birthdays and business plans. People are smiling again, the evening news happens to someone else, and the gossip under the Triple C's hair-dryers is finally getting good. Yet, before Piddie's last batch of Cathead Biscuits has a chance to cool, something new is crawling through the tall grass. A prominent citizen is hiding a dirty little secret; one that will shake the community to its roots and leave a legacy of doubt and mistrust that may never heal. Return with us to Chattahoochee, where Southern hospitality, strong family ties, and small town values collide with the darkest side of human nature in a story told with unflappable Southern charm.

Welcome to the town of Chattahoochee, Florida. Imagine living down the road from a mental institution and growing up in a world still drenched in the traditions of the Deep South. Hattie Davis couldn't wait to get away. Returning home for her mother's funeral, she reconnects with a dear and flamboyant friend, Jake Witherspoon. Despite the unfortunate situation that brought them together, the penned memoir of a deceased and beloved mental patient inspires Hattie and Jake to join forces and take the town by storm. Yet their new entrepreneurial lives stall when Jake is kidnapped and beaten by two local teenage boys. Apparently, the discovery of Jake's homosexuality comes easier for Hattie than some others. Interwoven with a sprinkle of magical realism, The Madhatter's Guide to Chocolate is rich with small town humor, tragedy, and extraordinary twists of fate, a touching tale of a Southern town's revival you will laugh, cry, and cheer over.

Mary-Esther Sloat is a woman with a patchwork past-three failed marriages, misspent youth, and a series of dead-end jobs. When she attempts to donate a kidney to her dying mother, she learns a life-altering truth: Loretta Boudreau Day is not her biological mother. After Loretta dies, Hurricane Katrina destroys Mary-Esther's only tie to New Orleans-her beloved Nana's house. For a while, Mary-Esther lives in a battered Chevy van. Armed with a faded birth certificate, she finally corrals the courage to unravel the mystery of her birth at a small hospital in the panhandle of Florida.When she finds the site of the hospital, she is dismayed to learn it now houses the Gadsden County Sheriff's office. Sergeant Jerry Blount befriends Mary-Esther and helps her locate a retired nurse who once worked at the small hospital. After meeting with the senior in a near-by assisted living facility, Mary-Esther visits the county courthouse to research records for children born on the same date. She discovers a baby girl with a similar last name-Sarah Davis of Chattahoochee, a small town in the same county.Hattie Davis Lewis lives with her husband Holston and adopted child Sarah Chuntian Lewis in the old family homestead three miles south of Chattahoochee, Florida. She often thinks of her older sister, a child also named Sarah who died shortly after birth. Hattie's older brother Bobby Davis, wife, and son live nearby on the family land. Bobby battles his own demons that threaten his hard-won sobriety.Mary-Esther camps out in her van at a lake near Chattahoochee, hesitant to confront the family she suspects to be her own. She takes a server job at the Homeplace Restaurant in town. Hattie Davis worries about a series of anonymous phone calls and the frequent sightings of a strange van circling her driveway. Is someone casing the house?Instead of welcoming arms, Mary-Esther finds a clannish community and a brother determined to keep her from claiming her birthright.The strange and twisted journey between her old life in New Orleans and her new life in Chattahoochee forces Mary-Esther's darkest fears and deepest longings to the surface.Is it possible to blend the person she believed she was with the person she never had the chance to be?

Chattahoochee, Florida, a town with a state mental institution on its main drag, seldom slips from its usual relaxed pace. Detached from the tourist havens farther south, everyone here knows everybody else. Senior citizen Elvina Houston, head of the little-ole-lady hotline, keeps her nose wedged in the middle. October typically brings three well-attended festivals and a break from the oppressive summer. But this year, the relentless heat and humidity continue and a parade of horribles cranks up for Jake Witherspoon, his best friend Hattie Davis Lewis, and her older brother Bobby, one that will affect their intertwined families, friends, and the entire town. The incidents Jake perceives as a replay of his horrible assault are every bit as real as the twisted man who inches into Hattie's family. How this group of small town folk handles the clash with hate and crime is a tribute to resiliency, friendship, and hope.