The Cooling Board

Is it really a thin line between love and hate? When is it okay to return home after so many years astray? Tamara Angela Grant pens an intriguing and heartwarming tale of a family who loves each other despite the fact that they may not always like each other. Enchanting and enlightening, The Cooling Board is an entertaining and strikingly clever, witty, and honest look at the way a family copes with the devastating loss of a loved one. Witness Jhonnie Bell Devereaux, who thought only one thing could drag her back to her birthplace of Regal City, Louisiana. When she hears news of the impending death of her mother, Jhonnie Bell rushes to her mother's side and in the process, gets reacquainted with the small rural bayou life she anxiously left behind years ago. Jhonnie Bell quickly learns that death does nothing to silence the dregs of disharmony among family members. Albeit, LuluBell Darling Devereaux's passing leaves her family without the Matriarch they all look to for advice and guidance; but her lifelong testimony and legacy was to hold her family together. How could she do this knowing that strife and misgivings would be hard to relinquish from those she knew best? She left each a letter that details her words of wisdom, but with one catch -- no one was to read her Last Will and Testament until they heeded the admonishments from her last words to each of them. Shock, joy and panic encompass the family's emotions. Will the late LuluBell bring the family together as she intends, or will it push them all further apart? That thin line becomes broader with each page you turn in this realistic view of family life.