Proofing Ground

Del Doucet left New Orleans ten years ago without a word, and she swore she was done with Praline Street for good.

Then her grandmother has a stroke on New Year's Eve, and Del comes home to find herself named joint head of the family, with Rae Garrity, the woman she walked out on. Neither of them can sign, spend or decide a thing without the other.

And there is plenty to decide. A rival has called in the loan on the family's jazz club: six hundred thousand dollars, due on Mardi Gras. No bank will touch it. The only people who can help are the ones who owe the family, and to reach them Del and Rae will have to knock on every door on the street together, and learn to stand in the same room again.

Down the street, pastry chef Paloma Duarte has answered a help-wanted sign nobody meant to leave in the window, and she cannot understand why a New Orleans bakery sells no king cake in king cake season. Birdie, who keeps the empty cake stands polished, is not about to tell her.

Proofing Ground is a sizzling, slow-burn sapphic mafia romance featuring second chances, forced proximity, found family and a guaranteed happily ever after.