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 [...]

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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 [...]

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The Reader by Bernhard Schlink – Review

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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.  [...]

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The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Audible, Narrated by Bianca Amato and Jill Tanner
Fiction, Published 2006

Audiobook Nov 2008, Read Dec 2006

4.5/5
From the Cover:
Margaret Lea works in her father’s antiquarian bookshop where her fascination for the biographies of the long-dead has led her to write them herself. She gets a letter from one of the most famous [...]

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Agnes and the Hitman

Agnes and the Hitman
by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer
Fiction, Published 2007
Read November 2008
4/5
From the Cover:
Take one food writer named Cranky Agnes, add a hitman named Shane, mix them together with a Southern mob wedding, a missing necklace, two annoyed flamingos, and a dog named Rhett, and you’ve got a recipe for a sexy, hilarious novel [...]

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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Fiction, Published 1960

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – 1961
Read Sept-Oct 2008

5/5
From the Cover:

Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South — and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred

One of the best-loved stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird [...]

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