It's not easy being the Queen of Broken Hearts. While Clare has no problem helping the hundreds of men and women who seek her advice to mend their broken hearts, healing her own is another matter entirely. But falling in love again is the last thing she wants.

None of the Same Sweet Girls are really girls anymore, and none of them have actually ever been that sweet. But the story of this spirited group of six Southern women, who have been holding biannual reunions ever since they were together in college, is nothing short of compelling.

In a small Alabama town in Zion County, life is finally looking up for 20-year-old Donnette Sullivan. Having just inherited her aunt's old house and beauty shop, she's taken over the business, and her husband Tim, recently crippled in an accident, is beginning to cope not just with his disabilities but also with the loss of his dreams. Once a promising artist who gave up art for sports, Tim paints a sign for Donnette's shop, Making Waves. The raising of the sign causes ripples through the town.

Married for 20 years to the Reverend Benjamin Lynch, a handsome, ambitious minister of the prestigious Methodist church, Dean Lynch has never quite adjusted her temperament to the demands of the role of a "Sunday wife." When her husband is assigned to a larger and more demanding community in the Florida panhandle, Dean becomes fast friends with Augusta Holderfield, a woman with a secret past whose good looks and extravagant habits immediately entrance Dean, much to Ben's disgust.