Queen Bee of Mimosa Branch

September 2, 2002
"The only degree I have is a Ph.D. in Southern Bitch," proclaims Linwood Breedlove Scott, the feisty Prozac-popping, menopausal heroine of Smith's hardcover debut. When her husband drains their bank account and leaves her for a stripper, Lin retreats to her hometown of Mimosa Branch, Ga., to lick her wounds. Facing her conservative, gossipy Southern town as a newly divorced woman is no easy task, however, especially when her best friend lives miles away, her house has become a menagerie haunted by her Alzheimer's-stricken Uncle Bedford, and her boss at the drugstore is an uptight Northerner, Grant Owens, whom she finds disturbingly attractive. Determined to leave her meek hausfrau self behind and start taking charge of her life, she plots to seduce Grant and joins forces with an ex-con preacher with the proverbial heart of gold to oust the corrupt mayor from office. The story covers familiar territory, but Lin's efforts to make a home for herself in a now-unfamiliar town, to reconnect with her old friends and mend rifts with her family are well-observed and bittersweet. Snapshots of Southern living will charm the hardest-hearted Yankee; the purple bathtub full of pink begonias on Lin's mother's porch is irresistible. The inspirational tone becomes rather cloying as the happy-ever-after ending approaches, but strong characters and Smith's irrepressible wit anchor the fluff. Featured alternate selection of the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, Rhapsody and BOMC; regional author tour.

September 1, 2002
Left in a situation right out a bad country-and-western song (her husband has run off with a stripper), Linwood Breedlove Scott heads back her hometown of Mimosa Branch, GA, to create a new life. Lin finds her parents as crazy as they were when she married 30 years ago, and the small town outside of Atlanta is ripe with corruption. After a slow start, the novel seems to lurch from romance to parody to pop psychology to Southern belle humor, though the language at times sends some for smelling salts. There are funny moments, and Holiness preacher and mayoral candidate Donnie West is a great character. But humor is a matter of delicate balance, and Lin's Uncle Bedford falls flat; Alzheimer's is too horrible for many to inspire chuckles. Also tiring is the frequent male bashing. Smith has written six successful historical romance novels and should perhaps stay with the genre she's mastered. With reduced public library budgets in many states and an abundance of excellent Southern belle novels, this one can be ignored.-Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2002
Home is the place that, when you go there, they have to take you in. Divorced, destitute, and dejected, that's just what Lin Breedlove Scott is counting on, but menopausal and middle-aged, she is dreading it, too. Home means living with her opinionated, obstreperous, octogenarian parents, Miss Mamie and The General. Home means coming back to Mimosa Branch, a far cry from Atlanta's posh Buckhead, where Lin lived with her husband of 30 years until he hocked all their stocks and ran off with a stripper. But Mimosa Branch is different: the Western Auto is now a fern bar and there's a lesbian running a misogynistic art gallery right next to Chief Parker's drugstore, where Lin stumbles into a job, a romance, and maybe even a new life. If a town can change, perhaps Lin can, too. Smith is onto something good here in Mimosa Branch, a veritable gold mine of southern homespun homilies and hospitality, where the Ya-Ya sisterhood would feel right at home. This one just shouts "sequel!"(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)