Louise Miller returns to the bucolic setting of her first novel, The City Baker's Guide to Country Living, for her second, The Late Bloomers' Club. Since her father's death, Nora Huckleberry has been mostly happy running the Miss Guthrie Diner, the small-town Vermont gathering place that was his dream. She's used to taking care of everyone, including her regulars. But when Peggy the town cake lady dies unexpectedly, Nora and her sister, Kit, discover that they've inherited Peggy's farmhouse, her land, some significant debt and the question of whether to sell the land to a big-box developer.
For Nora, caring for folks and being dependable aren't simply good choices: they're fundamental to her identity. A self-effacing, capable eldest child, she increasingly took on responsibilities during her mother's illness, Kit's childhood and their father's slide into Alzheimer's. Kit, a freewheeling, exuberant filmmaker always in search of a home (and ready cash), returns to Guthrie to film her latest project and urge Nora to sell the land. As the townspeople argue over the sale, the sisters must reckon with the deep love and resentment that are part of their bond.
Miller's narrative is full of big life questions, but also joy: Guthrie's annual tomato and corn festival, the diner's mouthwatering omelets and Peggy's luscious cakes and gestures of support from friends and neighbors. As Nora wrestles with her difficult inheritance, she starts to believe she might have the chance for some new possibilities: even autumn, after all, has its flowers. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams