Waking Up in Dixie

A cheating husband's change of heart leads to scandal and second chances in the New York Timesbestselling author's “zesty read-in-one-sitting romp” (Booklist).

Elizabeth Mooney escaped her “white trash” family to marry the crown prince of her small town, Howell Whittington. Thirty years later, she's trapped in a loveless marriage to a cheating bully of a banker who’s foreclosing on all her friends. Elizabeth has accepted her unhappy fate—until Howe has a stroke in church . . . and wakes up a changed man . . .

Suddenly, Howe wants to be a real husband, which scares proper Elizabeth to death. Setting out to right past wrongs, he blackmails the town’s baddies into doing the right thing. The ensuing rollercoaster ride wakes up not only Elizabeth and their marriage, but the whole town and its hidebound institutions.

“Smith shakes up the midlife marriage renewal subgenre with . . . a refreshing departure from convention.”—Publishers Weekly