It’s 1950, and Ruby Moyer has just graduated high school. She’s got a recipe for her life, and it begins with putting her parents’ broken marriage back together and going to college so she can get a job in Betty Crocker’s test kitchens. But she’s got no money. Worse, she doesn’t know where her mother is. Fueled by dreams of family reconciliation and a glamorous career, she abandons her backwater Pennsylvania Dutch town on the trail of her missing mother, squirreling away money for her college fund as she goes.

Ruby makes friends with sassy, irresponsible Vesper, who joins her on her journey. They make their way to South Philadelphia, where Ruby starts to make a name for herself as a cook in a family restaurant. But when Vesper lands herself in trouble, Ruby must decide whether to save her new friend or to follow her own dreams.

A helping of foods both familiar and new, a dash of gossipy, self-righteous neighbors, and a splash of adventure await Ruby as she cooks up her new life.

Becca Weaver quits teaching high school English in the city after she inherits her great-aunt Opal’s farm in the little town of Haasenville in the Pennsylvania Dutch country. Running seven acres is an impossible job when you don’t have the know-how, so Becca places a want ad for a farmhand willing to work for room and board. At first, Cole seems to be the answer to her prayers—he knows things about farming that Becca can’t begin to understand—and she finds herself falling for him. But a local politician's insistence on buying her land, the Haasenvillers’ endless meddling, and secrets from Cole’s past threaten to break Becca's heart and send her back to her solitary existence in the city.

Currently seeking representation. Read an excerpt, ”Black Wednesday”, in the Indiana Voice Journal.