Queen Bee (Smith)

Southern housewife Linwood Breedlove Scott was happily content in her comfortable, complacent thirty-year marriage, but when her husband cleans out their bank accounts and runs off with a stripper, her life takes a hilarious, yet touching, right turn into reality. With no place to go but home, she's forced back to her insular hometown and the "eccentric" family she escaped by marrying at nineteen: her senile father, her loving-yet-controlling mother, her long-suffering aunt, her crazy uncle, and her good-for-nothing brother. But, despite her newly dependent situation and her family's genteel insanity, Lin begins to stand on her own two feet and wake up to the joys-and perils-of life as a single woman. And, she also learns surprising lessons about her family: that things aren't always what they seem, and that the power of love governs even the most dysfunctional of relationships. This joy-filled, moving, and wise-cracking novel delivers a portrait of Southern life, Southern families, and self-discovery that readers will never forget.

In Queen Bee Goes Home Again by bestselling author Haywood Smith, it's been ten years since Linwood Scott had to move back home to Mimosa Branch, Georgia the first time. Now, with her work in real estate at a stand-still because of the economy, and her ex-husband and his alimony payments (and his former stripper-current wife) nowhere to be seen, Linwood finds herself back in the place she'd never thought she'd be: the garage apartment next to her mother Mamie's mansion. But this time around things are different. It's not just Linwood that's ten years older. Her uncle and father are living in a home, and Mamie is working hard to take care of everything on her own (while still bossing around her nearest and dearest). Linwood's brother has cleaned up his act and turned over a new leaf. And there's a new Baptist preacher in town...who also happens to be handsome and divorced. While Linwood reconnects with Mimosa Branch and works to figure out what her next step will be, its family, love, and a sense of humor that will help guide her through the unpredictable turns her life has taken.