"Buried secrets, environmental disaster, and a legacy of corruption hit too close to home when a California native and her family make a fresh start in small-town Texas—and find trouble just beneath the promising surface in this powerful novel for readers of Terry McMillan, Tracy Brown, ReShonda Tate, and Elsie Bryant.
As director of an award-winning investigative news radio show, Billie Jordan is used to helping others fight trouble. But she faces her own when the radio station is sold and she’s unable to find another job. Their savings dwindle as she and her husband struggle to help their son overcome an opioid addiction. When her husband gets a professorship at an HBCU in his hometown, they relocate to get a fresh start. Billie slowly adjusts to a cubicle workspace, sweltering heat, and accepting “y’all” as a word. All is well until severe storms cause massive destruction and contaminate the town’s water supply—making it unsafe to drink.
Billie learns water woes and boil water notices have existed for years. In her new job at a local bank, she finds connections between money, power, and family are as dirty as the water. Warned to mind her own business, she remains persistent and discovers a shocking cover-up. Even more shocking is who is involved—and the extent to which they’ll go to protect their interests.
Billie has always advocated for the people over the powerful. But when her son gets in trouble, her silence can make it go away. With her son’s freedom at stake and mounting tensions threatening her marriage, she’ll need all her resources and skills to save her family and expose the corruption … if a conspiracy doesn’t drown her first."
"From rural Mississippi in the Jim Crow era through the transformative 1970s, this sweeping novel tells the tale of a mother’s sacrifice, relentless ambition, and against-all-odds success. But the one dream she can’t stop chasing may cost her everything …
Money is security. Always. Margo Dupree has lived by that rule since childhood, when her father’s death plunged her and her mother into poverty. Marriage brought only disillusionment and struggle. But it also gave Margo the determination to migrate north in search of a better life for herself and her young daughter, Lana.
The north, however, isn’t the panacea she expected, and Margo finds herself contending with the all-too-familiar obstacles of racism and prejudice, not to mention the new stresses of urban living. But things change once she realizes that what was once her greatest shame is now her greatest asset—the skills she learned from her mother’s job as a cook. Using her tasty recipes, personality, and relentless hustle, Margo begins to build a successful restaurant chain. Yet despite her ever-more desperate efforts, she can't earn her heart’s deepest desire: Lana’s forgiveness for her early absence.
As Lana becomes a beautiful young woman with an increasingly mercenary temperament, Margo wonders if she knows her daughter at all—and if she can save her from the bitter and frighteningly dangerous mistakes that may shatter both of their worlds …"
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