Ada Howard, the wife of the preacher at Nashville's Full Love Baptist Tabernacle, has a whole lot of people to take care of. There's her husband, of course, and the flock that comes with him, plus the kids at the day care where she works, two grown daughters, and two ailing parents. It's no wonder she can't find time to take care of herself. And her husband's been so busy lately she's suspicious some other woman may be taking care of him ... Then it comes: the announcement of her twenty-five-year college reunion in twelve months' time, signed with a wink by her old flame. Ada gets to thinking about the thrills of young love lost, and the hundred or so pounds gained since her college days, and she decides it's high time for a health and beauty revival. So she starts laying down some rules. The first rule is: Don't Keep Doing What You've Always Been Doing. And so begins a long journey on the way to less weight and more love. Ada's Rules will hit a nerve in our overweight and weight-obsessed world. An inspiring role model, Ada is also a relatable everywoman: smart, sassy, soulful, and unforgettable. Her hard-earned rules are about changing a body and a life-and also about falling back in love with the life you have.
Author
Alice Randall (born Detroit, Michigan) is an American author and songwriter. Randall grew up in Washington, D.C.. She attended Harvard University, where she earned an honors degree in English and American literature, before moving to Nashville in 1983 to become a country songwriter. She currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee and is married to attorney David Ewing. Randall is the first African American woman to write a number one country hit. Over 20 of her songs have been recorded, including several top ten and top forty records; her songs have been performed by Trisha Yearwood and Mark O'Connor. Randall is also a novelist, whose first novel The Wind Done Gone is a reinterpretation and parody of Gone with the Wind. The Wind Done Gone is essentially the same story as Gone with the Wind, only told from the viewpoint of Scarlett O'Hara's half-sister Cynara, a mulatto slave on Scarlett's plantation. The estate of Margaret Mitchell sued Randall and her publishing company, Houghton Mifflin, on the grounds that The Wind Done Gone was too similar to Gone with the Wind, thus infringing its copyright. The lawsuit was eventually settled, allowing The Wind Done Gone to be published. The novel became a New York Times bestseller. Randall's second novel, Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, was named as one of The Washington Post's "Best fiction of 2004."
