This guest review was graciously provided my one of my book club sistas, M. 
I am a music educator by trade. To put it poetically, the sun is setting on my summer. I usually fill my summer with reading from the library. On the day I picked The Cracker Queen I was taking my usual stroll (yes, I stroll in summer) around the library. I picked up The Cracker Queen because it’s about life in the South. Being a Southerner, I love just about everything Southern. So many times I have picked up humorous books about the …

My hubby and I were able to put the almost final touches on the landscaping for the front of our new home this weekend after a visit to my uncle’s farm and his Japanese Maple nursery – Quail Hollow Gardens. Located on Crooked Oaks – Pat Dye’s home, farm and hunting grounds – the property could as easily be called a nature preserve. We took John and Kristi – friends of ours who also graduated from Auburn and were students in the 80′s while Pat coached there.
 
The Japanese maples are …

Quickly into this book on tape I thought, “Shoot. This is going to be one of those anti-Christian novels that uses a broad brush to paint all Christians as insane fundamentalists who are mean and holier-than-thou.” I’m so glad it wasn’t.
The Abstinence Teacher is about Ruth, divorced mother of two and the sex education teacher in a small-town suburbia, and Tim, her daughter’s soccer coach and member of a fundamentalist church that is gaining a strong hold on the town’s politics and education. Ruth is reprimanded and later dismissed as …

This is a second post about something I love. I’m considering a reoccurring “Things I Love Thursdays;” what do you think? It won’t be every Thursday, ’cause there just aren’t that many things that I love enough to feel they are worthy of sharing. I mean, I can think of about 3-4 more items, and one of them falls into the TMI category, so I’m going to have to gather some gumption to write about that. (That item, btw, I’ve been recommending for about 15 years, and I can list …

We have winners! Congratulations to:
Lynne
Melissa
Julie
Hira
Joy 
All of the winners have been contacted & the signed galleys are on their way to their new homes. For the winners, I hope you all enjoy The Orchard and will come back here to let the rest of us know what you think!
If you were not a winner, please stop by your local bookstore to pick it up (or order from Amazon – look to the right). Or better yet, catch Jeffrey when he’s in your neighborhood. You can view his tour schedule here. I …

The 19th Wife is David Ebershoff’s award winning novel that combines two stories – a historical fiction account of Ann Eliza Young – the 19th wife of Morman leader Brigham Young – and a modern day murder mystery of a 19th wife in jail for killing her husband.
I was completely rapt by both narratives, but perhaps a little more so by that of Ann Eliza. She divorced Brigham and toured the country after publishing a her memoir Wife No. 19, crusading to end polygamy and advancing women’s rights. I was …

As I write this, Jeffrey Stepakoff is celebrating the debut of The Orchard at FoxTale Book Shoppe in Woodstock, GA. It is planned to be a fantastic celebration, and I hate that I couldn’t be there.
With The Orchard - as with Fireworks over Toccoa – Stepakoff has ensured that the local details are recognizable to the residents. He uses familiar restaurants, street-scapes, and even grocery stores to draw in a certain segment of his readers. So those who know Buckhead, mid-town, the Atlanta interstates and the north Georgia apple country will immediately feel …

Joshilyn Jackson hits another home run with Backseat Saints. Like The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Jackson takes on a more serious topic, domestic abuse – and more specifically how it tends to run in families – but does so with grace and dignity.
The main character in Backseat Saints is Rose Mae Lolley – a minor character from gods in Alabama. In the previous story, Rose Mae shows up looking for her high school sweetheart. In the current novel, we learn Rose Mae’s version of their relationship and just why she …