It has been a difficult year for the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina, who had to bid a final farewell to a good friend. But Beatrice Newgarden Witherspoon, Jessie Jenkins, and Louise Fisher are now ready to take on a new project: they're determined to find a husband for their young, single pastor friend Charlotte Stewart, since she's too busy running a shelter in New Mexico to look for a suitable companion herself. The matchmaking doesn't go...

With the holiday season drawing near, the ladies of Hope Springs, North Carolina, are making plans for a cake cookbook, a project that will hopefully lift the spirits of a beloved member of their close-knit quartet. Margaret Peele is downhearted now that her cancer has returned. All she wants this Christmas is to visit her mother's Texas hometown and to see their absent friend, pastor Charlotte Stewart, who left Hope Springs to run a battered women's...