Ella In Bloom

The Story

Ella is a gutsy single parent eking out a living for herself and her intrepid teenage daughter, Birdie, in Old Metairie, Louisiana. Ella writes to her mother about her heirloom roses, linen dresses, and other amenities of a respectable life. Little does her mother know about the run-down, scruffy house Ella really lives in, or that she makes ends meet by watering rich people's houseplants when they flee the coastal summer heat. When Ella's beautiful sister Terrell suddenly dies in a plane crash, old family patterns are shattered, and Ella, confronting the reality of her life-which includes a man she had relegated to the past-can come, finally and fully, into bloom. 'Hearon explores with characteristic sensitivity the immense challenge of finding personal happiness in a world that often urges us to settle for less.' (The Boston Globe) 'A colorful bouquet, redolent with the bittersweet scents of lost and found love.' (USA Today) 'Shelby Hearon has outdone herself in her wonderful new novel. . . . Ella's story is Shelby in full bloom.' (Frederick Busch)