Seeking Beta/CP for Adult Cozy Mystery (79K)
Persephone Weeks
Pamela Sullivan
SEA ISLANDS has the flavors of 'Southern familial ties that bind' found in Kristy Woodson Harvey's Slightly South of Simple mixed with finding the strength to change and courage to forgive in Kristin Hannah's Distant Shores.
About the book: Before Gage died, Shelby Collins made two oaths to her son: keep writing and remain a family. But when a ghostwriting memoir assignment takes her from the familiar islands of Southern California to South Carolina's mystical Lowcountry, she's forced to choose between a promise made and an unexpected second chance at happiness. With a rebellious nineteen-year-old daughter in tow, Shelby meets a new tribe: formidable culinary icon Addie May bursting with a fifty-year-old secret, her salty cohort Gullah chef Cookie Jones, and New York environmental attorney-turned-florist Luke Bridges. Shelby finds healing within Bluffton's Palmetto Bluff community as her soulful daughter Kara finds all-encompassing love on nearby Hilton Head Island. Finally, after waves of turbulence on both coasts, the cookbook/memoir goes to print and Shelby decides crucial family decisions demand attention. The islands of Southern California and South Carolina play pivotal characters, as does Gullah cuisine, which Southernkitchen.com declared "the next big thing in Southern food." The novel is a stand-alone book but is planned as a trilogy.
After graduating from San Diego State University with a liberal studies degree focused on literature, my husband and I raised our family in Newport Beach, California. However, my family is from the South, and I spent twenty summers with my husband and children in Bluffton and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. My professional background is in writing, marketing, film production, and meaningful nonprofit work with families facing life-threatening pediatric illnesses.
