Brandon, MS: Dogwood Press (April 2021)

Hardback.

As new in dust jacket.

Carrie Burns, a young mother in early twentieth-century Biloxi, Mississippi, seems to have it all: a doting husband, two adorable little boys, and a wealth of friends and family support. But her world is shattered when she wakes one morning to find that not only are her husband and sons gone, so is their sitter, a teenage girl from a good family. As a full-time homemaker, Carrie has no marketable skills or the financial means to launch her own search when police inform her that her husband and boys may already be far from home. But what Carrie does possess is courage and moxie.

After talking her way into an entry-level position with the thriving Desportes seafood business, she learns the industry and develops a lucrative enterprise of her own, finally making her journey possible. In a harrowing trek along the East Coast of Florida and, ultimately, to a city hundreds of miles away, Carrie receives crucial assistance from her cousin David Tauzin, a powerful Biloxi attorney. While David appears to have her best interests at heart, his murky background frightens Carrie. As she hunts for her beloved sons, can she really trust this caring but mysterious man who knows so many influential people? A page-turner layered with the rich history of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Cradle in the Oak introduces author Candace Cox Wheeler’s enviable gifts as a storyteller with a cast of characters that will get under your skin and a heroine in Carrie Burns you will never forget.

A fourth-generation Biloxi, Mississippi, girl, Candace Cox Wheeler is a partner in the law firm of Wheeler and Wheeler, PLLC, where she has worked alongside her husband, David, since 1982 and raised two sons. She is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Mississippi School of Law. Cradle in the Oak is her first novel.