What You Leave Behind

I think Wanda M. Morris just keeps getting better and better with each succeeding book.  What You Leave Behind (#1246) is her third novel.  This one is set in the Gullah Geechee culture of Georgia's Golden Isles.

Deena Woods' life is on a downward spiral.  She's lost her beloved mother, her job at a prestigious Atlanta law firm, her marriage and her home, all within a few months.  She's come back to her childhood home in Brunswick, Georgia and a dead-end job.  Her father has remarried, and Deena feels uncomfortable with his new wife, so she spends a lot of her time driving aimlessly around the area.  One afternoon, she stops by a wide expanse of marsh and beachfront.  When she gets out of her car for a few breaths of fresh air, she is confronted by an old black man armed with a gun.  He orders her off his property after demanding  to know who sent her there.  Deena is thoroughly confused, but his threats are real, so as she tries to get away from him and his dog, she trips over a root and knocks herself out.  When she awakens in Holcomb Gardener's trailer to a barrage of questions about her purpose in coming there, she can't answer them.  Gardener allows her to leave, but on her way out, she is chased by a black SUV back to town.  Deena is determined to find out what is going on and why the old man kept saying he would never sell his land.

The more she digs, the stranger things become.  Someone in Brunswick and beyond is cheating poor people, black and white, out of their properties by using a legal loophole.  "They" are making tons of money, and don't take kindly to interference, as Deena soon finds out.

There's a bit of a woo-woo factor here, but I thought it enhanced the atmosphere of the book and its emphasis on Gullah-Geechee culture.  A little bit of romance and lots of redemption here. And the legal loophole at the heart of the story is unfortunately, very real, as Ms. Morris explains.  Highly recommended!