A Novel.
Ella has always lived in the shadow of her perfect older sister. To escape her steel magnolia mother's expectations for her she elopes with a handsome scoundrel, but is left a "respectable widow" when he is drowned at sea. Now eking out a living for herself and her precocious teenage daughter in steamy Louisiana, she invents a genteel life for them in letters to her mother in Texas, writing about heirloom roses, pastel linen dresses and other necessities of a respectable, country club life.
Ella's mother never hears about her youngest daughter's real life - the rundown, scruffy house Ella lives in, or that she makes ends meet by watering rich people's houseplants when they flee the summer heat.
Out of the blue Ella's beautiful sister Terrell calls to beg a favour. She wants her to lie for her - to pretend she is staying with Ella while she meets her Texan lover. But when Terrell is killed in a plane crash en route, Ella's lives - real and imaginary - collide when she must return to the family home. Forced to deal with the lies she has created - and the man she had relegated to the past - Ella finally comes into full bloom.
