In the book Breakfast Will Never Be the Same, John Reed meets Patti Scanlon while away on business. They have a whirlwind romance and marry during their stay in Hawaii. He returns months later with his new bride to a home she's never seen and to live in a small Mississippi town where she's never been. Will she adjust to the different size and culture of this new life over her beloved hometown of Chicago? Will she find she can manage a household, new friends, and new family, along with marketing a billion-dollar invention from such an out-of-the-way place as Walnut Grove?

Not only does Patti feel at home, she finds adventure with two new friends. Mystified by a deceased uncle's obsession with roses, she searches, with the help of Martha Jo Ashburn and Carol Ann Bush, for the answer to Why Roses?