St. James Parish, Louisiana holds the distinction of being number three on the list of U.S. counties having the most Roman Catholics. But the parish's truly great claim to fame is being known for the once magnificent and still standing plantations on River Road running along the Mississippi River. These antebellum mansions are a part of Southern history that tourists pay to visit. Blue Tousssaint Butler lives in a remodeled overseer's cottage of Dahlia Hall, her family's plantation for nearly two centuries.

At one time, Dahlia Hall had been one of the biggest sugar producers in the South, second only to the Pennington family's Esterbrook Plantation, a few miles south on River Road. And for most of those two hundred years there has been a feud between the Toussaint's and the Pennington's over some disputed land that ran between their two estates. Dahlia Blue Toussaint's, Blue's great-great-great- great-grandmother, favorite quote about a Pennington: "You can put a gold ring in a swine's nose, but it's still a swine."

Esterbrook Plantation is not open to the public for several reasons. First, the remaining heir, Kasper Pennington, doesn't like strangers in his family home, and the structure needs major restorations and repairs. Kasper has moved his grandmother, Sudie, to an assisted living facility while his construction company is working on the old mansion, and she keeps running off. Sudie is at Blue's cottage and calls her grandson to come and pick her up, much to Blue's chagrin, and prays he does not remember her and their first and only meeting on Memorial week-end over twenty years ago -- but he does. Kasper was home on leave from the Marine Corps and had just finished Scout Sniper School -- and awarded his Hog's Tooth -- and would be leaving in three days to be deployed. Kasper and Blue might be mortal enemies, but that night the sizzling sexual energy bouncing between them is combustible. Kasper's mother always reminded him that Toussaint women had their noses so high in the air they would drown in a rainstorm, but those same women couldn't resist a Pennington man.

Blue is divorced and has a fifteen-year-old son; Kasper has been married and divorced twice, but has no children. When he retired from the military he returned to the tragic conditions left by Hurricane Katrina and started a construction company that now has branches in several southern cities. The chemistry is still strong between these protagonists, and difficult to ignore. Would the world come to an end if a relationship developed between them?

BLUE BY YOU is as hot and steamy as a Cajun summer and Rachel Gibson is at the zenith of her awesome talent. The characters are fleshed out fully -- usually in the flesh -- and the dialogue is razor sharp as Blue and Kasper exchange raucous zingers about each other's ancestors. Ms. Gibson's narrative is spot on and smooth as cane syrup, which as all Southerners know is "larrupin' good." This reviewer loved this novella and would love to read it in a full length book that goes on and on and on!