Book description
Jade Dupree is a beautician and an undertaker's assistant with a gift
for smoothing the ravages of death from the faces of her clientele.
But her strange talent isn't the only thing that sets her apart from
the townspeople of tiny Drexel, Mississippi.
Jade is half-black and the unacknowledged bastard daughter of
Drexel's ''first lady,'' the imperious Lucille Longier. Jade's half
sister, the pale, fragile, and legitimate Marlena, is married to Lucas
Bramlett, the wealthiest man in the region. While the entire town
knows of the blood bond between the two women, no one dares speak the
truth out loud.
Though her talents as a hairdresser are highly sought after by
Drexel's elite, Jade accepts that she'll never truly be part of the
town and lives her life the best she can. But on one hot summer day in
1952, Jade's world is turned inside out when Marlena, on a tryst with
her lover, is savagely beaten and her young daughter kidnapped.
Determined to find her niece before it's too late, Jade accepts help
from a white sheriff's deputy, Frank Kimble. The forbidden attraction
that ignites between them threatens to add to the violence already
brewing in town.
