Joyce Magnin

Aging and recent widow Harriet Beamer insists she's getting along fine with her dog Humphrey in Philadelphia ... until she falls for the fourth time, injuring her ankle, and causing her son and daughter-in-law to cry foul. Insisting Harriet move in with them in California, they make a bet that her ankle is broken, and she foolishly promises to move if they're right. Four x-rays later, Harriet's ankle---and her heart---are broken. She packs up, ships...

Pitching a tent on the roof of her home during a summer when she gets fed up with her dysfunctional relatives, Joyce bonds with a boy who is grieving the loss of his brother before concocting a plan to build and sell tickets to a UFO display.

More than frosting filled those cakes…Wilma Sue seems destined to go from one foster home to the next-until she is sent to live with sisters and missionaries, Ruth and Naomi. Do they really care about Wilma Sue, or are they just looking for a Cinderella-style farmhand to help raise chickens and bake cakes? As Wilma Sue adjusts to her new surroundings and helps deliver "special" cakes, Wilma Sue realizes there's something strange going on. She starts...

Wilma Sue is wary of the eccentric sisters, Ruth and Naomi, at her new foster home, but wonders if she might have a true home with them, baking and delivering cakes and tending their chickens, until she is implicated in a series of neighborhood crimes.