Haywood Smith: "Other people's secrets, I could keep, but not my own."

I have to admit, I am a complete sucker for books about groups of women getting together and talking, a la Divine Secrets of The Ya Ya Sisterhood and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Wedding Belles (Amazon), by Haywood Smith is another delightful addition to this genre.

The basic plot is this: Georgia, Linda, Diane, Teeny and Pru are southern women in their fifties who have been friends since high school. They meet once a month at a local restaurant wearing red and purple to discuss their lives and provide one another support. This time, Georgia, the narrator, is the one with a problem. Her 27 year old daughter, Callie, is engaged to Georgia's husband's best friend, a man that the group went to high school with. He was known as Wild Man Wade, and has a history of alcoholism, among other things. Together the group sticks together and helps Georgia through this unforeseen situation.

Overall, I really enjoyed this novel. It is definitely a comfort food/guilty pleasure sort of novel, which is exactly what I needed when I read it. Occasionally, the religious references got a bit heavy handed-but hey, it's the South, right? Religious references seem to come with any book set there. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a comforting story about mothers, daughters, or weddings.

I wrote a quick note to the author:

"I recently read Wedding Belles, and I just have to say, I found it absolutely delightful. I absolutely love books about mother-daughter relationships and the friendships of women. I was having a rather bad day when I picked up your novel, and it was just what I needed to perk me up. Thank you so much for writing it!"

That's all for today. I'm hoping to start posting to this blog much more regularly again. I have a lot more time to read right now. Hope to see you soon!