A Southern novel in the tradition of Anne Tyler and Anne Rivers Siddons, A Better Place marks the adult fiction debut of one of television's most successful and creative writers In an attempt to discover why her life hasn't worked out the way she had hoped it would, Valerie Caldwell returns to the Southern town she left twelve years earlier to visit her old haunts and two friends from her school days, Tess and Mary Grace-much to their alarm and chagrin.