Several pounds heavier—and gaining—blissful mother-to-be Ellie Haskell knows her days as a thin woman are numbered. Time to let out her clothes, put up her feet, and prepare to enjoy the next nine months as pampered wife. But the first pangs of morning sickness have barely passed when Ellie''s handsome husband, Ben, is invited to compete for membership in the world''s most exclusive secret society of chefs, and suddenly Ellie finds herself whisked off to America—to Mud Creek, Illinois—and to a gothic mansion straight out of a horror movie.