A Dollar Short

June 20, 2005
The latest in Gillespie's lighthearted Bottom Dollar Girls series (after Bet Your Bottom Dollar
), set again in the small town of Cayboo Creek, S.C., chronicles how Chiffon Amber Butrell finds the inner strength with the help of her friends to stand up to rather than stand by her man. Chiffon has never had much money, but her wayward husband, Lonnie; three children; and Bottom Dollar Emporium friends Elizabeth, Mavis and Attalee enrich her life. When Lonnie is cast as an extra in a Janie-Lynn Lauren movie, he apparently abandons his family for the star. A distraught Chiffon hurts her ankle, loses her waitressing job, is accosted by paparazzi and finds her failing marriage splashed all over the tabloids. Gillespie alternates Chiffon's story with that of her older sister, Chenille, a never-married 40-year-old who moves back to Cayboo Creek when she loses her teaching job. While some readers may enjoy Gillespie's down-home humor (Attalee's spicy Southern maxims), some of the episodes (e.g., Chiffon fends off reporters with water guns) are too cute to believe. The novel's predictable ending aims for empowerment: Chiffon grows a backbone, Chenille finds love and Janie-Lynn wins an Oscar but still cries for Lonnie. Agent, Jenny Bent.