Katherine Baker is a reformed drunk and vagabond short-order cook when she returns to Cedar Mills, Washington, the hometown she fled in shame a decade earlier. By happenstance, Horace Greeley Martin is interviewing for help at his new Madison Café. Confessing he doesn't know much about running a restaurant, he hires Katherine on the spot. Here, a defensive Katherine comes to learn that family is not always defined by blood and "home" can mean many things. With a cast of finely drawn characters, the story is filled with small town charm and drama, and spiced with a mystery surrounding Katherine's piano which goes back to India and the British Raj. Set against the singular backdrop of the Puget Sound region, The Madison Café is a captivating bittersweet novel about the redemptive power of love.