When I did the "whither thou goest" number and followed my Venezuelan husband to the land of his forefathers in 1977, I never dreamed I would return to my own country a mere decade and a half later to find myself in a strange world I didn't know – and wasn't sure I really liked.

Changes had indeed been made. Despite my eager purchase of the international versions of Time and Newsweek each Tuesday, despite the twenty-four foot circle of aluminum struts on my roof that captured every re-run of Happy Days and The Cosby Show in the stratosphere, and despite the annual treks to Disney World and Macy's, I had somehow missed out on a giant portion of cultural life in America.

I could deal with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (where I worked) becoming Health and Human Services. I could tolerate Jon Bon Jovi, Tom Cruise, and Madonna. I could try sushi, skateboarding, and soymilk – but the truth is, I mourned the past like one who has awakened from a protracted coma.

The most remarkable changes, I felt, had occurred in the living room of the American home. It was no longer a place where everyone gathered to talk, or listen to the radio – as in my youth – or even to watch television. Children had their own televisions – and telephones – and computers in their rooms. There was no reason for them ever to venture into a familial living space.

Parents and children no longer even shared meals. Children ate lunch at school, and munched until bedtime on such colorful and unlikely nutrients as Fruit Loops, Bagel Bites, Pizza Rolls, and Toaster Pops. Overworked fathers ate Kung Pao Shrimp at their desks, and harried mothers snacked on the congealed remnants of Happy Meals while ferrying the kids from basketball practice to the orthodontist.

Popular talk show hosts called those who could not adjust to these stressful conditions – the children who used drugs and shot their playmates - and the parents who became alcoholics and committed adultery - dysfunctional. I thought they were sad and lost, and in need of a reminder that "togetherness" is not a dirty word.

I recalled the books my grandmother read to me – grandmothers did that in my day – The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, Little Women, and all of my favorite Nancy Drew stories. Those books reinforced my ideal of what family life was meant to be. The characters loved and respected one another. Nancy often expressed her affection for her father, and it was his advice she sought when she was beyond her depth. And no one could doubt Jo's devotion to her beloved Beth.

My own children eschewed the popular books of their times – the ones with large yellow birds and small fuzzy puppets who were cute but appeared pasteurized and predigested - and returned to those I had loved. At one point our collection of Enid Blyton's adventures rivaled that of the bookstores in Charing Cross, and both girls claimed for years that Laura Ingalls was her best friend.

It was these same children, all grown up, who convinced me to write books. Write, they insisted. Write about "normal" people like us. I laughed at first, wondering how normal it was to sell all of your possessions and run off to South America. How sensible was it to tolerate a housekeeper who teaches your children magic spells, and how many people took time to bake Girl Scout cookies during a coup d'etat. But they were right: we were normal, if normal means liking and loving the most important people on earth – your family. And so – I wrote my first book.

Paisley Sterling, the heroine of my mystery series, is the middle one-third of a family whose members actually enjoy being together. Paisley, her mother, Anna, and her daughter, Cassandra, are completely different in every way. Cassie is smart, beautiful, and flirtatious – and enough like her grandmother to create just the right amount of friction - while Paisley is the polar opposite. Her sassy irreverence and quick wit are the bane of her patient and elegant mother's existence, but there is never a doubt that she is loved.

Paisley, who used to write children's books, now hides behind the pseudonym of "Leonard Paisley" to publish the hard-boiled crime novels that allow her the financial freedom to return to her mother's farm. Cassandra, a recent college graduate, comes home to the same little western Kentucky town because she, too, opts for the quiet life away from the glass towers of Atlanta where she went to school. And Anna Howard Sterling, the quintessential Southern belle, is more than happy to have her darlings under one roof – all safe and sound, or so she believes.

When their adventures begin - when they eagerly agree to become partners in crime, they discover that danger gives them a new reason to hold each other close – to appreciate the moment, and to remember to say, "I love you."

They're not perfect, these three. They have their moments of anger and disappointment; but they know something everyone else seems to have forgotten - mothers and daughters should be treasured, friendships are priceless, laughter is much better than medicine, and a nasty little dog with the bite of a cobra must be allowed to sleep on your pricey down pillow if she means the world to your beloved offspring.

E. Joan Sims