The author is herself a "cake lady", who owns a bakery in North Carolina. This book is an homage to the cake culture of the South, with it's unique flavors that often came out of a need for economy or just using the local fruits and nuts. Each cake lady is profiled, in her own words, about how she began baking and how she learned her skills that set her apart from other bakers. The fact that the majority of these ladies had no professional training, and that many began baking as a means to help support their families, lends a very homey feel to this book, even though it's full of big color pictures of beautiful cakes. There are some recipes here I'll definitely try, and I was happy to see a good Mississippi Mud Cake recipe that looks like what my mom made when I was a kid. ( )