When Monroe Blackwell, who is spending the summer at her grandmother's Louisiana bed-and-breakfast, meets Nathan Everets, who has a court-appointed job there, they share, and begin to recover from, their respective feelings of loss and guilt.
Elsie, now twenty-one years old, wishes to marry an old friend but her father decrees she must first learn to manage her inheritance, including her mother's Louisiana sugar plantation and its slaves.
Visiting her grandmother in the Louisiana bayou, ten-year-old Maddy begins to realize that she may be the only sibling to carry on the gift of her family's magical legacy.
Bowser is a mutt, just adopted by eleven-year-old Birdie Gaux and her grandmother, but when they all get home to Grammy's bait and tackle shop in the bayou they discover that their prize stuffed marlin has been stolen--so Bowser decides to investigate, and things quickly become complicated and dangerous.
Although Clovis Crawfish and his bayou friends are afraid of the large, insect-devouring mantis that invades their home, they earn her gratitude by rescuing her when she gets stuck in the mud.