The Camellia Garden

Second Spring at the Camellia Garden

Their mother left three sisters a garden, a tearoom and one impossible rule: they all have to agree.

At forty-five, Allison Ballard is a Savannah accountant, two years widowed, and the sensible one. The family nursery on Camellia Island is drowning in debt, a resort developer is offering a fortune, and the math is simple. Sell.

But Frances Ballard's will says the vote has to be unanimous. And Allison's sisters aren't anywhere close to agreeing.

Then there's Garrett Lyle, the landscape architect the developer hired to measure every bed and walkway for demolition. He's supposed to be on Allison's side. Instead he keeps kneeling in the dirt beside the old camellias, telling her what her mother planted and why it matters.

And in the potting shed, under forty years of seed packets, Allison finds a box her mother never meant anyone to open.

A clean, heartwarming story of sisters, family secrets and a widow's second spring.

Secrets at the Camellia Garden

Gwen Ballard quit her big-city life to save her mother's tearoom. She didn't expect to fall for the man who knows where all the secrets are buried.

At forty-three, Gwen is divorced, bold and allergic to sitting still. She walked away from Atlanta event planning to keep the tearoom open, and she's not about to let a resort developer, or her practical big sister, take it from her.

First, though, she needs answers about the box in the potting shed. That means the county archives, and that means Everett Doss.

The shy county historian has never married, never left the island for long, and never met a record he couldn't find. He also has never met anyone quite like Gwen, who talks with her hands, reads over his shoulder, and brings scones to the archive in clear violation of the rules.

What they uncover about Frances Ballard will change everything the sisters thought they knew. What they uncover about each other might change even more.

A clean, heartwarming opposites-attract romance about family, history and the courage to dig deeper.

Rain Lilies at the Camellia Garden

Natalie Ballard has never stayed anywhere longer than thirteen weeks. This spring, she might not have a choice.

At forty, the youngest Ballard sister is a traveling ER nurse with a packed bag by the door and a gift for leaving before anyone can ask her to stay. She came home to cast her vote and go. Then the family secret broke wide open, and now there's a brother out there none of them have ever met.

Natalie means to find him. To do it, she has to ride the island ferry every morning, captained by Colby Reeves.

The widowed ferry captain is raising his eight-year-old daughter, Lucy, who has decided Natalie is the most interesting person she's ever met. Colby is steady, patient and not looking for anything. Least of all a woman who's always halfway out the door.

But after the spring rains, when the lilies come up overnight along the ferry road, Natalie starts to wonder if roots might grow somewhere she never expected.

A clean, heartwarming homecoming romance about found family and finally staying.

Easter at the Camellia Garden

He's the brother they never knew they had. She's the one who sets him a place at the table.

At forty-two, Mandy Pryor is the Camellia Garden's baker, Frances Ballard's former apprentice, and practically a fourth daughter. She's warm, loyal and single, and she would do anything for the Ballard girls. Including making the most important Easter dinner of their lives.

Derek Lawson is a widowed Savannah carpenter who just found out his birth mother was Frances Ballard. Now three sisters he's never met want him to come for Easter, and he's more nervous than he's been in his life.

Mandy decides he needs a friend before he walks into that dining room. She doesn't expect a quiet, gentle man with sawdust on his sleeves to become so much more.

With the family vote drawing closer and a seat at the table that's been waiting forty-seven years, everyone at the Camellia Garden is about to learn what it really means to belong.

A clean, heartwarming story of family secrets, Easter homecoming and the outsider welcomed in.

The Tearoom at the Camellia Garden

For a whole year, he has come in every day for tea and a scone. She has never once let him say why.

At sixty-seven, Inez Ballard is the sharp-tongued, quick-witted soul of the Camellia Garden tearoom, and the keeper of a secret she has carried for forty-eight years. She loved her sister. She also knew things Frances never told her daughters. And she's terrified of what they'll think when they find out.

Harlan Mabry, a retired riverboat captain and widower, has taken the same corner table every morning for a year. Earl Grey, one scone, and twenty minutes of conversation Inez pretends not to enjoy. He's patient. He's kind. He's run out of excuses for not asking her to dinner.

As the garden blooms around them and the family's last secret comes into the light, Inez must decide whether she can forgive herself, and whether, at her age, she can still let herself be loved.

A clean, heartwarming later-in-life romance about guilt, grace and second chances at any age.

A Wedding at the Camellia Garden

They saved the garden. Now they have to survive the wedding.

At forty-five, Allison Ballard never imagined she'd be running her mother's garden with her sisters, let alone planning a wedding to the man who once came to tear it down. But Garrett Lyle proposed under the old camellias, and the Spring Garden Festival is the perfect time to say I do.

Then a storm tears through Camellia Island ten days before the festival, and everything they've rebuilt is on the line.

Gwen has a plan. Natalie has a ferry full of volunteers. Mandy has more cake than anyone can eat, Inez has opinions, and the whole island shows up with shovels. As the sisters fight to save their mother's garden one last time, Allison and Garrett must learn how to make the hardest decisions together.

A clean, heartwarming wedding story about sisters, community and a family made whole.