It Happened in Eighty-Eight — Bettye Griffin

In this first book in a new series, author Bettye Griffin introduces readers to Eighty-Eight, Mississippi, a town that has more secrets than it has magnolia blossoms...

Schoolteacher Cornell Sebastian returns to the Mississippi town that had been her salvation after a traumatic experience ten years before when she was just fifteen. Her uncle has willed his house to her, which she plans to spruce up and sell. Living on her own for the first time bolsters her self-confidence, and she begins to think that maybe she can put her nightmare past behind her…but there's just one thing she needs to do to accomplish that, and it's not something she can do alone…

Kitchen and bath designer Ajay Vincent is enchanted by the new woman in town when she hires him to update her kitchen. As he gets to know Cornell, he suspects she has a troubled past, but his confidence that she will eventually confide in him turns to frustration as her issues stall their burgeoning relationship. When Cornell finally does share the details of her past with him, Ajay is left with a dilemma, for learning her secret makes it all but impossible for him to tell her his own…