Calysta Jefferies is the hottest black actress on daytime television and a diva of the soap opera world. But after 15 years, three returns from the dead, two failed pregnancies, one alien abduction and overcoming retrograde amnesia, Calysta still hasn't managed to snag the biggest award in daytime drama - the Sudsy.

Born as a ward of the state of Maine, the child of an unmarried Yankee blueblood mother and an unknown black father, Victoria Rowell beat the odds. "The Women Who Raised Me" is the remarkable story of her rise out of the foster care system to attain the American Dream--and of the unlikely series of women who lifted, motivated, and inspired her along the way.

From Agatha Armstead--a black Bostonian who was Victoria's longest-term foster mother and first noticed her spark of creativity and talent--to Esther Brooks, a Paris-trained prima ballerina who would become her first mentor at the Cambridge School of Ballet--"The Women Who Raised Me" is a loving, vivid portrait of all the women who would help Victoria transition out of foster care and into New York City's wild worlds of ballet, acting, and adulthood. Though Victoria would go on to become an accomplished television and film star, she still carried the burden of loneliness and anxiety, particularly common to those "orphans of the living" who are never adopted. Vividly recalled and candidly told, her story is transfixing, redemptive, heartbreaking, and, ultimately, inspiring.

New York Times bestselling author and beloved actress Victoria Rowell delivers another hilarious novel and shocking send-up of the soap opera world, featuring Calysta Jeffries, the unstoppable diva of daytime drama. As we learned from Victoria Rowell's smash hit Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva, no one gets in the way of leading lady Calysta Jeffries. Now, after a brief stint in drug rehab, Calysta is back on the set and ready for action as she resumes her role as the star of The Rich and the Ruthless. But not everyone in the cast and crew is happy to have the diva back. As soon as she wraps her first return episode, some of her fellow colleagues and cast members are conspiring, once again, to sabotage her career. She's already survived amnesia, an alien abduction, and death three times over-but all that and a real-life alcohol abuse problem couldn't keep Calysta down. So her enemies come up with the nastiest plan ever devised. They invite Calysta's beautiful daughter Ivy to audition for The Rich and the Ruthless and offer her a role alongside her very competitive mother, turning Calysta's whole world upside down. Ripped from the headlines of TMZ and packed with behind-the-scenes secrets, Victoria Rowell's latest soap opera drama crackles with salacious details and over-the-top, hot and heavy hijinks. You won't be able to put it down. Ripped from the headlines of TMZ and packed with behind-the-scenes secrets, Victoria Rowell's latest soap opera drama crackles with salacious details and over-the-top, hot and heavy hijinks. You won't be able to put it down.