Rules for a Pretty Woman

Rule #9: I will heed the warnings of my inner voice

Dr. Lenita Mae Faulkner has come a long way from her dirt-poor beginningsin Madoosa County. All she's missing is a family. And with her nine-year live-in lover Ralph seemingly about to pop the question, it looks like she's about to get her wish -- a good thing, too, since Lenny's biological clock is ticking rapidly toward thirty-five.

Rule #7: I will never again go fetch the beer

But instead of proposing, Ralph skips out, empties their joint bank account,and runs off with another woman. And on top of that, a true family catastrophe is calling her back to tiny Madoosa -- the last place Lenny wants to be.Home again at the lowest point of her once-charmed life, Lenny is blastedby a forgotten piece of her past: a diary she kept in the fifth grade containing a list of rules she had created to live by. And in their simple, fervent honesty is the impetus for her to get out and start living again.

Rule #3: I will follow my dreams

Look out world, because Lenita Mae is coming on strong once more -- andthis time, it will be according to her own rules! It won't always be pretty, and it won't be perfect . . . but it may just help her discover what real love is all about!

Suzette Francis is a graduate of Howard University who, after a successful career in business, decided to focus exclusively on being a writer. She lives with her husband and children in the mountains of Tennessee, where she has written and directed plays, and has volunteered to tutor public school children in creative writing. Rules for a Pretty Woman is her first novel.