Welcome to the South. Y’all have been warned.

In Bless Your Heart: A Field Guide, Skip Nichols (Shoppe owner Ashley’s husband!) takes readers on a funny, heartfelt, and occasionally dangerous tour through Southern life, family folklore, church culture, good food, bad decisions, and people who mean well whether you asked them to or not.

These stories wander through quick visits that are never quick, prayer lists where privacy goes to die, casseroles that function as both love language and threat, church signs that were social media before the internet got involved, funeral home etiquette, family reunions, sweet tea, deviled eggs, banana pudding, and the many emotional levels of “Bless your heart.”

Part humor collection, part cultural field guide, and part love letter to the complicated South, this book celebrates the beauty, absurdity, warmth, wounds, manners, myths, memories, and meals that shape Southern life.

If you were raised in the South, you’ll recognize these people.

If you weren’t, bless your heart.

Either way, fix yourself a plate and settle in.