The Quaker Café
A debut novel brimming with Southern heart about a small town where, regardless of what happens behind closed doors, the neighbors awake each morning and meet at the Quaker Café.
When Liz Hoole, a free-spirited liberal from the Midwest, marries into a conservative Quaker family in a small rural town in North Carolina, she knew it would be a delicate task to negotiate the raising of her four boys in compliance with Quaker values…but as much as she tries, she always seems to fall short of expectations.
After Judge Corbett Kendall, the politically powerful father of her best friend, dies, Liz stumbles upon secrets from the past that threaten to unravel the delicate fabric of racial harmony in an easily-divided town. Whether examining the history of Cottonwoods Plantation or eavesdropping on the latest gossip at the local Quaker Café, she finds herself burdened with the truth of an injustice that she cannot reveal, even to her own husband.
The Quaker Café dances with rich Southern characters: Miss Ellie, the elderly owner and gracious hostess of the café knows more than she admits; Debbie Bradshaw, Liz s dynamic and colorful secretary, knows more than she should; and Frogbelly thinks he knows it all. As Liz delves deeper into the history of Cedar Branch, she learns that even good people can make bad choices and that bad choices can have lasting consequences.
Everything Happens at the Crossroads
Brenda’s first book was an extensive narrative on the descendants of Eugene Whitefield Dabbs and Maude McBride.
Excerpts from that book can be found at: http://dabbscrossroads.
Emma
Emma Marie Laubscher, born on a farm near Denison, Iowa, in 1910, was widowed as a young mother in 1953. This book is written in memory of her nineteen year marriage to Henry (Hank) John Remmes and to the hard choices she made to support and to encourage her three children following his death. Most of Emma’s six grandchildren never had the opportunity to know her.
While this book is written in first person, we did this only for the sake of providing a voice to personalize the stories. Bill, in essence, represents all of us: Elizabeth Jane (Betty) Remmes, John Frederick Remmes and William Dean (Bill) Remmes. We have each contributed to this narrative and edited it to reflect our personal and collective memories