“Some scars are too deep to ever heal”, Leah Gabriella Allen whispered in hushed anguish.

The orphaned young woman knows all too well about scars...a thick burn spanning her left palm...a deep rigid scar adorning her right hip...a scar etched across her bottom lip.... There were countless more, exposed as well as hidden deep within. After years of foster and group home instability, Gabriella naively falls in the thorny arms of the abusive Brent Sadler. The constant bruise of cruelty is ever present in their 10 years of marriage—beatings that riddle her body and then being locked away in a closet when Brent grows weary of looking at the damage.

One last momentous beating ends with two deaths and changes Gabriella’s life forever. She stumbles away within an inch of her own life and begins a journey to an unexpected southern home which is none other than Lulu’s Café, where she tries to mend her severed spirit.

Lulu is the petite charismatic southern belle with a strong unshakable faith. She wisely takes on the challenge of helping the young woman heal her broken body as well as her shattered spirit. She enlists the support of the enchanting southern gentleman, Crowley J. Mason IV, whose ocean blue eyes seem to hypnotize Leah (as they know her) from the start. Leah is an unwanted stranger in Crowley’s quaint southern town of Rivertown, South Carolina. He holds her at arm’s length as he tries to decipher the mystery of her recent past. Before the young lawyer realizes it, he finds Leah tucked protectively in his arms. He wants nothing more than to help her heal...if she would just trust enough to let him in.

Lulu’s Café interlaces human failures and sheds light on the paths that lead out of them.

Natasha Soudek

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