The Cooling Board- Summary

Cooling Board- (definition from Wikipedia) A cooling board is a board used to present a dead body. In winter months it would be impossible to bury the dead due to the earth being frozen, so the body is wrapped and propped in a barn until the ground thaws out.


Only one thing could drag the worldly Jhonnie Bell Devereaux back to her birthplace of Regal City, Louisiana. When she hears news of the impending death of her mother, Jhonnie Bell rushes to her mother’s side and in the process, finds herself getting reacquainted with the small town, rural life on the bayou of the hometown she anxiously left behind years ago.

LuluBell Darling Devereaux's passing leaves her family without the matriarch they all look to for advice and guidance. Staying true to her role as the family’s glue, Mrs. 'Bell, even in death, won't let the grave get in the way of her job of holding her family together. She has left each immediate family member a letter that details her words of wisdom, but with one catch...no one can read her Last Will and Testament until they heed the admonishments from her last words to each of them.

Shock, joy and panic encompass the family’s emotions. But does all hell break loose in the interim?Will Mrs. 'Bell's letters bring the family together as she intends or will it push them all further apart?There’s a thin line between love and hate. Tamara Angela Grant pens an intriguing and heartwarming tale of a family who loves each other despite the fact that they may not always like each other. Enchanting and enlightening, The Cooling Board is an entertaining and strikingly clever, witty, and honest look at the way a family copes with the devastating loss of a loved one.


Coming on Peace in the Storm Publishing 2009!!!

Welcome to The Cooling Board Blogs!

The time has come for my sophomore effort! Some of you may not be familiar with my debut Promises Made, Promises Kept (www.tamaragrant.com) which I self- published.

Things went well enough that I will be published this time around by Peace in the Storm Publishing! God is good all the time!

So I sat down and tried to figure out what I could write about next. Families and people are intriguing to me so I took a real life experience and decided to write about it.

My mom passed away (way too early I migh add) in 2006 from Leukemia. Everyone knows that when a family member passes away, that's one of the times when family gets back together, and it's not always pretty when they do.

I got to talking to people about my experience when my mom passed and was able to laugh at some of the things that went on, not because it was comical, but just the irony in the fact that other people had stories of family members who just acted a pure fool at the funeral or at the reading of the will, etc.

Thus, The Cooling Board was born. It's a story of family, love, life, and death. All of those things that happen to all of us in life, but we may not talk about what's really going on.

I want you to read the blogs, post comments, talk about your experiences. The Cooling Board Blogs are a place to share and hopefully a place of healing for my readers! Post as much as you want, Comment as much as you need to.

Peace!

Tamara