Rhododendron Rhapsody — Jean Kincaid

Emily Matthews is sick and tired of the constant battle of the bulge. Every year, as the class she teaches ends, she begins the summer vacation with renewed zeal to lose the weight gained by a sedentary life style as an inner city schoolteacher. By the time she arrives home in the evening, it's too late for outside activities like walking or jogging and though there are many walking parks, they involve too many hills for her tired feet and legs. Therefore, each summer she signs up for a new obstacle course designed to either cripple you for life or make of you a lean, mean, annihilating fat machine. Twenty-nine-year-old, Andrew Scott Prentiss, Author and temporary Professor at University of Virginia, lives with many regrets yet tries hard to right the wrong turns he's taken as well as those of his family. His younger brother married into the upper echelon of society, and he and his wife spoiled the only daughter they had, the end result being an anorexic niece, a sister-in-law with great knowledge of how to be a socialite, and no mothering instinct. When his brother is killed during a tour of duty for the country, the care of his family falls to Andrew. Emily winds up with Andrew as her professor. He decides to mentor her and hopefully prevent her from obsessive dieting that could ruin her life like it had his niece. They fall in love and she agrees to marry him on one condition…that he stops feeding her so often and so much. He agrees because he's learned the truth. Emily's simply trying to stay in shape and keep those birthin' hips from expanding.