Works by
Julie Cannon
(Writer)

The Homegrown Series

1. Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoes (2001)
   After 48 years of marriage and on the edge of old, Imogene "Imo" Lavender finds herself single after her beloved husband, Silas, dies. In the small rural town Euharlee, Georgia, where the social scene revolves most heavily around the Garden Club, Calvary Baptist Church, and the Dairy Queen, Imo takes solace in her backyard tomato garden. Tending her plants and raising two young women - her rebellious sixteen-year-old daughter, Jeanette, and Lou, the thirteen-year-old niece she has taken in - demands most of her time, but a friend insists that a trip to the Kuntry Kut ’n’ Kurl and a new man are what Imo really needs. At her prompting, and after a beautician transforms Imo into a woman who looks two decades younger, Imo reluctantly decides to cruise the frozen food aisles of the supermarket in search of single men buying Hungry Man dinners. Imo sets off on a hilarious dating spree - hooking up with a series of unsuitable bachelors and traipsing through widowed farmer’s cornfields. Full of raging hormones, Jeanette grows increasingly reckless, while good-hearted Lou joins her aunt in the healing place of the garden, and then chronicles her secret thoughts on love and life, including a fear of store-bought tomatoes, in "Loutishie’s Notebook." A shocking announcement from Jeanette about a sudden death then reminds them all that life, like a garden, changes with the seasons - and that the healing of a heart comes with time, love, and patience, just as surely as a new crop of tomatoes rewards a devoted gardener.

2. 'Mater Biscuit (2004)
   It is summer in Euharlee, Georgia, and Imogene Lavender’s garden is bursting with snap beans, okra, and tomatoes. The household - made up of Imo; her daughter Jeanette and her new baby; and Loutishie, Imo’s niece - is about to grow as well. Imo’s estranged mother, Mama Jewell, has begun to show signs of senility, and her cantankerous behavior is too much for the nursing home to handle. Imo decides that it is her duty to take her mother in. From their first meeting Mama Jewell and snarly Jeanette fight constantly - over everything from the television set to Jeanette’s illegitimate baby. Mama Jewell also brings with her some secrets from the past, including the story of Lou’s mother, who died giving birth to her, a revelation that sends Lou in search of her ne’er-do-well father. Poor Lou is compelled to steal and lie to retrieve clues and when she comes home one evening to an empty house, she concludes that the Rapture happened while she was at the river, and she’s been left behind. For Imo, who is already feeling the squeeze of being in the middle of the generations, Mama Jewell’s temperamental nature stirs up long-buried and unwelcome memories of a difficult childhood. Caring for a mother who never really cared for her is hard enough, but life grows even harder as Imo struggles with the meaning of the Fifth Commandment, and at the same time battles a pair of wayward peacocks she bought to tame Mama Jewell down. Much to everyone’s surprise, wild Jeanette becomes so determined to find a husband that she joins the Praise Squad church choir to catch the eye of the dreamy and enigmatic young reverend Montgomery Pike. Life isn’t always easy for Imo and the girls, but they have only to look as far as Imo’s beloved garden to be reminded that all things change with the seasons.

3. Those Pearly Gates (2005)
   Life is moving on and reluctantly Imogene "Imo" Lavender leaves the farm in small town rural Georgia to follow her new husband, Reverend Peddigrew into town to live in the parsonage.
   
   But her battle is not what she expects. When Imo feels the presence of the Reverend’s late wife, it throws a wet blanket on her attempts at passion. The move leaves Imo’s niece Loutishie struggling with feelings of resentment and stretching her faith to find a way back to her beloved farm. Imo’s daughter Jeanette, a beautician at the Kuntry Kut ‘n’ Kurl and recently married to a rockabilly reverend of her own is so afraid of becoming a "church lady" that she secretly enters an erotic bull-riding contest! A devastating event forces Jeanette to see that beauty is not just skin deep. All these problems seem small, however, when neighbors suffer a great tragedy and Imo must help them keep their faith. In the process, she learns what it really means to be a reverend’s wife.
   
   Those Pearly Gates is a story of passion and faith and the memories that haunt each of us.