Horse trainer Melody O’Shea is returning to Royalty Farm in Simpsonville, Kentucky. Her father has built it into the greatest American Saddlebred show stable in the country, but now he needs her help. Mel’s homecoming is bittersweet because the farm is also home to the secret daughter she gave up for adoption. Her pride had kept her from telling the father about the child. She never expected he’d come back as well. Popular American Saddlebred horse trainer Jake Hendricks has come to take charge of Royalty Farm, but when the main barn goes up in flames, Jake finds the farm is in more trouble than he expected. He’s always been married to his work, but with the return of the one woman he never stopped loving, his heart could be in trouble, too. As they prepare for the World's Champion Horse Show, Mel grapples with the mistakes of her past. She’s fallen off a lot of horses in her life. The trick is to get back on and try again. Does she have the courage to try again with Jake? But as the danger escalates, Mel and Jake must work together to discover who’s threatening Mel’s life and the safety of their daughter. Is there enough of an ember in the ashes of their past to reignite the flames of love? The Bluegrass Reunion series: Contemporary romances about second chances that can be read as standalone novels with happily ever after endings and no cliffhangers.

For decades, smiling images of "Aunt Jemima" and other historical and fictional black cooks could be found on various food products and in advertising. Although these images were sanitized and romanticized in American popular culture, they represented the untold stories of enslaved men and women who had a significant impact on the nation's culinary and hospitality traditions, even as they were forced to prepare food for their oppressors. Kelley Fanto Deetz draws upon archaeological evidence, cookbooks, plantation records, and folklore to present a nuanced study of the lives of enslaved plantation cooks from colonial times through emancipation and beyond. She reveals how these men and women were literally "bound to the fire" as they lived and worked in the sweltering and often fetid conditions of plantation house kitchens. These highly skilled cooks drew upon knowledge and ingredients brought with them from their African homelands to create complex, labor-intensive dishes. However, their white owners overwhelmingly received the credit for their creations. Deetz restores these forgotten figures to their rightful place in American and Southern history by uncovering their rich and intricate stories and celebrating their living legacy with the recipes that they created and passed down to future generations.

"This is ... a story of greed, corruption, deceit, mafia rule, government cover-ups, kidnapping, and even murder."--Introduction.