Elizabeth Pickett Sloan dies peacefully at the age of ninety six in the family mansion known as Pickett House. The last of her line, Elizabeth leaves her estate and mansion to the town of Bigby, Tennessee for the purpose of establishing a Bed & Breakfast. Laura Dole, a recently widowed thirty seven-year-old, is hired to supervise renovations and manage Pickett House. The relocation from a posh Nashville suburb to a rural town is a major adjustment for Laura, her fourteen-year-old daughter, Cassie, and seven-year-old daughter, Steph.

Elizabeth’s presence remains in the house. She is deeply disturbed by the overwhelming sadness this family brings to Pickett House and gets busy banishing the sadness from her ancestral home. The members of the Dole family are unaware that their new friends are all age-appropriate versions of Elizabeth.

This book is about loss, starting over, growing up a little, and falling in love. A ninety six-year-old woman was not always a ninety six-year-old woman. She was the little girl who had loved her daddy and understood the importance of promises. She had been the teenager who was afraid of new challenges until she learned that a difference could mean a change for the better. As a grown woman she had also suffered the cruel loss of a true love and yet remained unafraid to love again…and again. Elizabeth receives some help from a scruffy dog named Weldon and a cat named Marshmallow. A handsome, available, male veterinarian doesn’t hurt the story at all.