Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ

“I just bought us a B&B on eBay!”

With 31 notes from Bitsy, how could you go wrong?  While this is not strictly considered a southern read as it takes place in the Missouri Ozarks, I think this small town community could be placed anywhere in the south.  (Being from Texas it is sometimes hard to determine what is southern, when really it all lies north of here – south of the Mason-Dixon line?  I’m not sure.  That seems awfully far north to me.)  Katy has just taken her divorce settlement and bought a quiet B&B on the shores of Warbler Lake.  She packs her son, Josh, up with her very protective older sister, Emma, in tow and quickly discovers she may have gotten herself in over her head as she arrives in town.  It turns out the description on the ebay listing was not exactly what she had pictured.  Instead of buying a quaint bed & breakfast, Katy has just become the proud (somewhat) owner of the lake town’s bait shop and BBQ joint.  Katy is determined to make the best of things and not show her disappointment to Emma, who definitely believes Katy is in way over her head.

Just when the sisters get into the swing of things at the B&B, complications (i.e. the ex-husband and ex-mother-in-law) show up.

While looking on my Amazon buying history (of which we don’t need to go into…eeek!), it appears I bought this one back in September of 2007. I really enjoyed this read and I’m a little sad it stayed so long in my ever-growing TBR pile.   Southern fiction readers will enjoy the idiosyncrasies of the lake town’s folks as well as the family bond between the new B&B owners.   While you’ll have to overlook a few spelling and word omission errors as well as the sappy makeup love reunion that felt a bit forced, overall, I thought Bitsy’s B&B was a light-hearted read with a happy ending. Definitely a fun summer beach read, even if you never make it to the beach!

Quotes:

Gwen on connecting to the outside world (p. 203):

She wrote copious notes on everything she saw, including quotes from the locals on specific topics.  And then took that information to the only place in town that could handle it: Lake Hill Cemetery.

It said something about Warbler Lake that the only group of people in town who had updated access to global communications were the dead ones.  It was only atop this hill that little towers showed up in the corner of her PDA, and she walked through the tombstones to find the best signal.  The Bullock bench wasn’t the very best, but it was close.

Luella’s response to Gwen sitting on her husband’s bench for a signal (p. 241):

“Gwen knows your husband,” Latt said.

The old woman’s face lit up with surprise.  Gwen turned to glance at her companion, completely dumbfounded.

“She sits every day on that wonderful bench you put up for him in the cemetery,” Latt explained.

Gwen was momentarily horrified that Latt should make such a casual mention of something so sad.  To her surprise, Luella laughed.

“Trying to make cell phone calls, I’d wager,” she said.  “I swear, I should have had them design it like a phone booth, that’s what everybody uses it for.”

“I…uh…”  Gwen felt that she should apologize, but she wasn’t quite sure how or why.

“I’m sure Carlton enjoys the company,” Luella said.  “But I’d be careful, an attractive young woman like you sitting above him, that old coot will be trying to get a look up your skirt.”

Latt’s joke for Gwen (p. 237):

Did you hear the one about the hillbilly gal who went to town?

She was sitting in a coffee shop with two city women,” he said.  “Suddenly there was a beeping sound and one of the city women touched her forearm.  The hillbilly gal asked her about it.  ‘That’s my pager,’ the woman told her.  ‘I have a microchip imbedded under the skin of my arm.’  The hillbilly gal was pretty impressed.  Then a couple of minutes later the other woman lifter her palm to her ear and began talking.  When she finished she told the hillbilly gal, ‘That’s my digital phone.  The entire integrated system has been surgically implanted in my hand.’  Well, the hillbilly gal was almost overwhelmed with the idea of that.”

“I’m sure,” Gwen said.

“So she was feeling very backwoods and low-tech and she just had to think of something to impress these city women.  Suddenly she got up and went to the bathroom.  When she came back she had a long tail of toilet paper hanging down from the back of her dress.  ‘Well, will you look a that,’ she told the city women.  ‘I’m getting a fax.’”

Book Details:

Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ by Pamela Morsi

Southern Reading Challenge Three #2

Fiction, Published 2007

Read July 2009

3/5

Read my first review for the Southern Reading Challenge Three – The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen – Review

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Southern Reading Challenge Three #1

Fiction, Published 2008

Read June 2009

4/5

From the Cover:

Twenty-seven-year-old Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter in her North Carolina hometown is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her hidden closet.

Review:

Once again Sarah Addison Allen impresses with her yummy confections.  Josie’s predictable and somewhat reclusive lifestyle is turned upside down when Della Lee Baker, a girl known for being strange, shows up in Josie’s closet.  Della Lee will not only not leave Josie’s closet, but she discovers Josie’s secret stash of sweets and romance novels.  Josie agrees to let Della Lee stay for a few days so she won’t tell anyone about her stash.  Not only does Josie have to run her mother around town for all her social gatherings, but Della Lee soon sends her on a few errands of her own.

It seems everyone at Bald Slope has secrets.  Della Lee sends Josie around town in order to get her out of her room and away from her mother as well as put Josie in the path of learning the truth about her father, the town’s founder. Josie eventually closes in on the mysteries of the town and its people, especially what led Della Lee to her closet in the first place.

Each chapter of The Sugar Queen is cleverly themed with a different candy to reveal a new plot twist with Lemon Drops, SweeTarts, Sugar Daddy, Life Savers to name a few.   All the book lovers will love Chloe, the sandwich shop owner.

If you’ve got a sweet tooth, you can’t go wrong with this one!

Book Quotes:

It was embarrassing enough being such a sorry excuse for a Southern belle.  Her weight, her unfortunate hair, her secret dreams of leaving her mother who needed her, of leaving and never looking back.  Respectable daughters took care of their mothers.  Respectable daughters did not hide enormous amounts of candy in their closets. -p. 6

She’d found the door between the two closets by accident, when she would sit in her closet and eat candy she hid in her pockets when she was young.  Back then she used to hide from her mother in the secret space just to worry her, but now she stocked it with magazines, paperback romances and sweets.  Lots and lots of sweets.  Moonpies and pecan rolls, Chick-O-Sticks and Cow Tales, Caramel Creams and Squirrel Nut Zippers, Red Hots and Bit-O-Honey, boxes upon boxes of Little Debbie snack cakes.  The space had a comforting smell to it, like Halloween, like sugar and chocolate and crisp plastic wrappers. -p. 9-10

She [Chloe] could remember very clearly the first time it happened to her.  Being an only child on the farm miles from town, she was bored a lot.  When she ran out of books to read, it only got worse…She’d find them on her bed, in her closet, in her favorite hideouts around the property.  And they were always books she needed.  Books on games or novels of adventure when she was bored.  Books about growing up as she got older…Books liked her.  Books wanted to look after her. p.35-36

Also Recommended: Sarah Addison Allen’s Garden Spells

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink – Review

Image from Wikipedia

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Translated from German by Carol Brown Janeway

Historical Fiction, Published 1997

Read Feb 2009

3/5

From the Cover:

Set in postwar Germany, The Reader is a provocative, morally challenging, and deeply moving novel about a young boy’s erotic awakening in a clandestine love affair with a mysterious older woman. Falling ill on his way home from school, 15-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. For a time, the two become passionate lovers. Then, one day, Hanna disappears without a word. Years later, as a law student observing a trial in Germany, Michael recognizes his former lover on the stand, accused of a hideous crime. And as he watches Hanna refuse to defend herself against the charges, Michael gradually realizes that she may be guarding a secret more shameful than murder.

Book Quotes:

Imagine someone is racing intentionally towards his own destruction and you can save him – do you go ahead and save him?

Review:

I wanted to read this book after seeing the movie trailer with Kate Winslet.  While I thought the book was thought provoking, I didn’t really like it or think it should be considered a love story.  Pride, guilt, shame, cowardice and an overall feeling of numbness surrounded this novel for me.

I don’t think Hanna ever loved Michael and Michael only thought he loved Hanna.  Michael is only 15 and he is easily taken in by Hanna who uses him and then leaves him.  But I don’t think Michael is innocent.  He struggles with keeping the affair to himself and becomes consumed with anger, jealousy and possessiveness.  Later when Michael has a chance to partially redeem Hanna’s actions during the trial, he does not act.  He does nothing.  Michael is guilty for not standing up for truth and honor.  He realizes that Hanna could not be as responsible for the crimes committed at the concentration camps because she cannot read or write.  That is why she had him read to her, why she had the women at the camps read to her.  But Hanna is prideful and refuses to let on that she did something wrong.  Without showing any remorse, the full judgment of all the crimes committed to the Jews at the concentration camps is put on Hanna.

Michael never recovers from his relationship with Hanna.  He never moves on, even after marrying and having a child.  He is so consumed that he cannot love.  In an act of redemption, Michael sends tapes of him reading to Hanna in prison.  Hanna tries to redeem herself by learning to read and write in prison and by helping others.  In the end, Hanna never forgives Michael for not visiting or witnessing her growth and Michael never forgives Hanna for not loving him and once again she leaves him forever with no goodbyes.

Movie Trailer:

Naughty Neighbor by Janet Evanovich

Naughty Neighbor by Janet Evanovich

Fiction, Published 1992, 2008

Read May 2009

3.5/5

Louisa Brannigan’s neighbor was driving her crazy.  He snatched her newspaper and listened through her townhouse walls.  But when she got fired from her government job, Pete was there, asking her to join his undercover operation.  So Louisa was hopelessly entangled – professionally speaking – with the sexiest man alive.  Sneaking around the corners was fun, especially when the getaway car was a Porsche.  Suddenly, Louisa was enjoying life on the edge.

Review:

This was my first Janet Evanovich read and another great $1 find at Half Price Books.  It was quick, lighthearted and fun.  Definitely a great way to start my graduate school free summer!

Southern Reading Challenge

Southern Reading Challenge Three

May 15 – August 15, 2009

Maggie from Maggie Reads is once again hosting her very popular Southern Reading Challenge for 2009. She writes:

It’s that time of year!

The time when you pour a glass of lemonade or sweet tea and take your official summer spot on the porch. Lean back in that chase lounge surrounded by geraniums and ferns, and begin the summer long journey into Southern culture.

Participants may choose to read any style of Southern book such as Appalachian tales, Civil War sagas, Gothic myths, Grit lit, etc… The goal is THREE BOOKS in three months. As she did last year, Maggie will be holding weekly drawings and contests.

Looks like I’ll have plenty to choose from! =)

• The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen
• Sufficient Grace by Darnell Arnoult
• Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts
• Look Back All the Green Valley by Fred Chappell
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker
• The Known World by Edward P. Jones
  
• Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
  
• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
• Light in August by William Faulkner
• Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! by Fannie Flagg
  
• Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg
• Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man by Fannie Flagg
• On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon by Kaye Gibbons
• Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons
• The Rock Orchard by Paula Wall

Appaloosa

Appaloosa by Robert B. Parker

Everett Hitch Trilogy #1

Fiction – Western, Published 2005

Read March 2009

4/5

From the Cover:

When Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch arrive in Appaloosa, they find a town suffering at the hands of a renegade rancher who’s already left the city marshal and one of his deputies dead.  Cole and Hitch are used to cleaning up after scavengers, but this one raises the stakes by playing not with the rules – but with emotion.

Review:

Blood will spill in the town called Appaloosa.

This was my first Robert B. Parker novel and I really enjoyed the fast pace of the writing in a slow paced western.  The author really concentrates on the characters, setting them up for plenty of action in this new series, which wikipedia says will be a trilogy.

I can’t wait to read the next in the series. I’m waiting [patiently] for Resolution to come out in paperback on May 5th and the third book, Brimstone, will come out in hardback on May 9th, which means the paperback might be out by the end of the year.

Movie:

After finishing the book in only a few days, I rented the movie this weekend.  It follows the book pretty closely and I can only think of one scene that really deviated.  I enjoyed Ed Harris as Cole, Viggo Mortensen as Hitch, and Renee Zellweger as Mrs. French.  And the scenery is amazing.

After their shootout:

Hitch: That was quick.
Cole: Yeah, everybody could shoot.

American Wife: Review

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Fiction, Published 2008

Read March 2009

3/5

From the Cover:

A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one day end up in the White House, married to the president.  In her small Wisconsin hometown she learns the virtues of politeness, but a tragic accident when she is seventeen shatters her identity and changes the trajectory of her life.  More than a decade later, when the charismatic son of a powerful Republican family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised to find herself admitted into a world of privilege.  And when her husband unexpectedly becomes governor and then president, she discovers that she is married to a man she both loves and fundamentally disagrees with – and that her private beliefs increasingly run against her public persona.  As her husband’s presidency enters its second term, Alice must confront contradictions years in the making and face questions nearly impossible to answer.

Review:

This was the first book to be read by my work book club.  Everyone seemed to really enjoy it, much more so than I did.  What really is great about this book is the author’s prose.  She really pushes the story along and you always want to find out what’s going to happen to Alice next.

The novels opens and ends with Alice Blackwell wondering whether or not she’s made terrible mistakes in her life.  One tragic mistake in her teenage years completely rearranges the course of her life and she often romanticizes the relationship she had with the boy that was killed in the car accident.  A relationship that haunts and taunts her from the time of the accident through then end of the novel when Alice is in her sixties.

My favorite character in the book was Alice’s grandmother, Emilie, appropriately enough.  She always held to her beliefs and lived a life she thought was truthful within her circumstances.  Even though she lived a small town life and never pursued moving to the big city with her lover, she stood by her family and a life she felt needed and loved.

I think Alice lives in her past, in the relationship she never had with Andrew and in the single life as a librarian.  When she meets Charlie in her early thirties, she exchanges her entire life for one of privilege and Alice seems to always question whether she is worthy of such a life.  I think she struggles to live with Charlie.  What was once seen as fun loving, easy going Charlie become annoying and irresponsible behavior, especially when their daughter, Ella, is young.  But Alice soon learns that you can’t change a man, he has to change himself.  I became really annoyed with the characterization of Charlie, especially right before his and Alice’s separation, but others enjoyed him in the novel.

The fourth section of the novel seemed to be where everyone got bogged down in Alice’s retrospection.  Some of the events I think were a little far fetched.  I don’t think Dr. Wycomb would have turned on Alice or her grandmother and I don’t think the scene with Colonel Franklin would have ever been allowed to occur.  I was happy with Alice’s reunion with her friend Dena, but I think it was self-serving for Alice and would have been more meaningful if she had no ajenda to see her.  Even though Alice enjoyed the reunion, I doubt she visited Dena again.

Overall, I enjoyed the flow of the novel and there’s a sense of wonderment as to which events are based on fact and which were completely made up.  I’m not sure what Laura Bush would think of this novel, but I imagine she lives an entire life separate from the public’s eye as Alice did.

Quotes:

But what I did care about, what I wanted most fervently, was for her [Ella] to understand that hard work paid off, that decency begat decency, that humility was not a raincoat you occasionally pulled on when you thought conditions called for it, but rather a constant way of existing in the world, knowing that good and bad luck touched everyone and none of us was fully responsible for our fortunes or tragedies. (p. 401)

As one of my predecessors, Eleanor Roosevelt, wrote, “Every woman in public life needs to develop skin as tough as rhinoceros hide.” (p. 463)

A relationship for which you suppress and censor your beliefs is no relationship at all. (p. 529)

Reviews to come…

As a way to force myself to finish some reviews, here’s what’s to come in the next few days…

Nights in Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks

The Winter Lodge by Susan Wiggs

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Along the Shore by L.M. Montgomery (From Mel’s Shelves)

Shopaholic Blues

With the new movie about to come out, I thought I would do a triple deck review for the first three books in the Shopaholic series.  Rebecca Bloomwood is just a hoot.  In her first adventures in Confessions of a Shopaholic, she is a London socialite who just can’t say no to a good deal.  Especially those with the vogue labels.  From sample sales to buying luggage, she has not only maxed out her closet space but all of her credit cards.  And on top of that, Becky is supposed to be the so-called expert on how to save your money and spend wisely.  But after getting numerous statements from her creditors and bank, Becky either hides them away so they don’t really exist or write letters back asking for extensions. The more she tries to cut back, the more she spends.  Can Becky survive the credit crunch?

Then there’s Luke: the perfect, handsome, wealthy English businessman who can’t seem to get enough of Becky’s unusual quirkiness and at first finds her shopping obsession to be amusing.  But will he find it amusing when she’s spending his money?

I really enjoyed Confessions as well as her shopping trips in Manhattan, but I found Becky’s wedding story to be my least favorite so far of the Shopaholic books.  What I loved most about Becky in the first novel, just doesn’t seem to work now in the third.  She’s older, married, and supposed to be more responsible.  While I found Becky’s fun shopping mishaps and her inability to curb her use of her credit card in the first Shopaholic book funny and even a bit relatable, it seems to be completely disrespectful to her husband and herself the way she nonchalantly shops.  Also I really hated the dilemna between picking between her mother’s garden wedding in London and an extravagent million dollar wedding in NYC thrown by Luke’s mother.   I didn’t find this situation funny.  Becky really let the ball drop on this one so I’m hoping Shopaholic and Sister will improve my Shopaholic blues.

I’ve read a few other reviews on this one raving about Becky, so am I the only one with the Shopaholic blues?

I am, however, looking forward to the new movie coming out.  I just love Isla Fisher.

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Catching up with the Shopaholic:

Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella

Shopaholic Series #3

Fiction, Published 2003

Read Dec. 2008

3/5

From the Cover:

Life has been good for Becky Bloomwood: She’s become the best personal shopper at Barneys, she and her successful entrepreneurial boyfriend, Luke, are living happily in Manhattan’s West Village, and her new next-door neighbor is a fashion designer!  But with her best friend, Suze, engaged, how can Becky fail to notice that her own ring finger is bare?  Not that she’s been thinking of marriage (or diamonds) or anything…

Then Luke proposes!  Bridal registries dance in Becky’s hand.  Problem is, two other people are planning her wedding: Becky’s overjoyed mother has been waiting forever to host a backyard wedding, with the bride resplendent in Mum’s frilly old gown.  While Luke’s high-society mother is insisting on a glamorous, all-expenses-paid affair at the Plaza.  Both weddings for the same day.  And Becky can’t seem to turn down either one.  Can everyone’s favorite shopaholic tie the knot before everything unravels?

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Confessions of a Shopaholic (#1)

Fiction, Published 2000

Read June 2007

4/5

From the Cover:

Becky Bloomwood has what most twenty-five-year-olds only dream of: a flat in London’s trendiest neighborhood, a troupe of glamorous socialite friends, and a closet brimming with the season’s must-haves.  The only trouble is, she can’t actually afford it – not any of it.  Her job writing at Successful Saving magazine not only bores her to tears, it doesn’t pay much at all.  Still, how can she resist that perfect pair of shoes?  Or the divine silk blouse in the window of that ultra-trendy boutique?  But lately Becky’s been chased by dismal letters from Visa and the Endwich Bank – letters with large red sums she can’t bear to read – and they’re getting ever harder to ignore.  She tries cutting back; she even tries making more money.  But none of her efforts succeeds.  Her only consolation is to buy herself something…just a little something…

Finally, a story arises that Becky actually cares about, and her front-page article catalyzes a chain of events  that will transform her life – and the lives of those around her – forever.

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Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (#2)

Fiction, Published 2001

Read Aug 2007

4/5

From the Cover:

With her shopping excesses (somewhat) in check and her career as a TV financial guru thriving, Becky’s biggest problem seems to be tearing her entrepreneur boyfriend, Luke, away from work for a romantic country weekend.  And worse, figuring out how to pack light.  But packing takes a whole new meaning when Luke announces he’s moving to New York for business – and he asks Becky to go with him!  Before you can say “Prada sample sale,” Becky has landed in the Big Apple, home of Park Avenue penthouses and luxury boutiques.

Surely it’s only a matter of time until she becomes an American TV celebrity, and she and Luke are the toast of Gotham society.  Nothing can stand in their way, especially with Becky’s bills miles away in London.  But then an unexpected disaster threatens her career prospects, her relationship with Luke, and her available credit line!  Shopaholic Takes Manhattan – but will she have to return it?

Maya Angelou’s ‘Letter To My Daughter’

Letter To My Daughter

by Maya Angelou

Biography, Published 2008

Read Dec. 2008

3.5/5

Description:

For a world of devoted readers, a much-awaited new volume of absorbing stories and inspirational wisdom from one of our best-loved writers.

Dedicated to the daughter she never had but sees all around her, Letter to My Daughter reveals Maya Angelou’s path to living well and living a life with meaning. Told in her own inimitable style, this book transcends genres and categories: guidebook, memoir, poetry, and pure delight.

Here in short spellbinding essays are glimpses of the tumultuous life that led Angelou to an exalted place in American letters and taught her lessons in compassion and fortitude: how she was brought up by her indomitable grandmother in segregated Arkansas, taken in at thirteen by her more worldly and less religious mother, and grew to be an awkward, six-foot-tall teenager whose first experience of loveless sex paradoxically left her with her greatest gift, a son.

Whether she is recalling such lost friends as Coretta Scott King and Ossie Davis, extolling honesty, decrying vulgarity, explaining why becoming a Christian is a “lifelong endeavor,” or simply singing the praises of a meal of red rice–Maya Angelou writes from the heart to millions of women she considers her extended family.

Like the rest of her remarkable work, Letter to My Daughter entertains and teaches; it is a book to cherish, savor, re-read, and share.

Review:

The cover of this book is just so beautiful and eye-catching.  I really enjoyed reading this one. It was a fairly quick read with lots of useful and wise tidbits.

Quotes:

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.  Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud. (p. xii)

I gave birth to one child, a son, but I have thousands of daughters.  You are Black and White, Jewish and Muslim, Asian, Spanish-speaking, Native American and Aleut.  You are fat and thin and pretty and plain, gay and straight, educated and unlettered, and I am speaking to you all.  Here is my offering to you. (p. xii)

I knew that if God loved me, then I could do wonderful things, learn anything, achieve anything.  For what could stand against me, since one person, with God, constitutes the majority? (p. 162)

That knowledge humbles me today, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in my gums.  And it also liberates me.  I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys.  I am ripples of waves on silver seas.  I’m a spring leaf trembling in anticipation of full growth. (p. 162)