"Restless with the familiarity of her Alabama home, Ellie Fields accepts a teaching job in a tiny Louisiana town deep in bayou country. Though rightfully suspicious of outsiders, who have threatened both their language and their culture, most of the people in tiny Bernadette, Louisiana, come to appreciate the young and idealistic schoolteacher as a boon to the town. She's soon teaching just about everyone--and coming up against opposition from both...

Against the wishes of his business partners, a dying Chef Julien decides to publish his secret recipes, and his daughter Chloe must search for the source of her father's seasonings while avoiding trouble from the opposition.

Introduces a Louisiana Cajun family and their celebration of Mardi Gras including the music, the food, and the costumes.

When sassy old Dog tricks Alligator, king of the swamps, it starts a feud that continues to this day in the Louisiana bayous.

Eleven-year-old tomboy Livie is sure that she is responsible for the accident that has put her mother into a coma, so, trying to make amends, she travels through the Louisiana swamps to get a spell that will make her mother well again.