Drawing on the little-known true story of one tragic night at an Ozarks dance hall in the author’s Missouri hometown, this beautifully written, endearingly nostalgic novel picks up 50 years later for a folksy, character-driven portrayal of small-town life, split second decisions, and the ways family secrets reverberate through generations.

Daisy Flowers is fifteen in 1978 when her free-spirited mother dumps her in Possum Flats, Missouri. It’s a town that sounds like roadkill and, in Daisy’s eyes, is every bit as dead. Sentenced to spend the summer living with her grandmother, the wry and irreverent town mortician, Daisy draws the line at working for the family business, Flowers Funeral Home. Instead, she maneuvers her way into an internship at the local newspaper where, sorting through the basement archives, she learns of a mysterious tragedy from fifty years earlier…

On a sweltering, terrible night in 1928, an explosion at the local dance hall left dozens of young people dead, shocking and scarring a town that still doesn’t know how or why it happened. Listed among the victims is a name that’s surprisingly familiar to Daisy, revealing an irresistible family connection to this long-ago accident.

Obsessed with investigating the horrors and heroes of that night, Daisy soon discovers Possum Flats holds a multitude of secrets for a small town. And hardly anyone who remembers the tragedy is happy to have some teenaged hippie asking questions about it – not the fire-and-brimstone preacher who found his calling that tragic night; not the fed-up police chief; not the mayor’s widow or his mistress; not even Daisy’s own grandmother, a woman who’s never been afraid to raise eyebrows in the past, whether it’s for something she’s worn, sworn, or done for a living.

Some secrets are guarded by the living, while others are kept by the dead, but as buried truths gradually come into the light, they’ll force a reckoning at last.

CW – Violent death depicted on page, the aftermath of identifying remains is discussed – both these sections get graphic. Death of an infant. 

Dear Michelle Collins Anderson,

Lately I’ve been in the mood for historical fiction and when I saw this cover I fell in love with it. That plus a story set in 1978 (which I remember quite well, thank you very much) closed the deal. 

In 1928 most of the young people in the small town of Possum Flats, Missouri are at the upstairs dance hall late in the evening when suddenly it explodes in heat and flame. By reason and chance of where they are some are spared while others die horrible deaths. Stunned, the town rushes in to try to save the living then gather the dead. 

Almost fifty years later, young fifteen year old Daisy Flowers is dropped off at her grandmother’s house in some podunk town in Missouri after which her peripatetic mother leaves for California along with her latest lover. Daisy and Rose awkwardly work out how they’re going to live together until Lettie sends for her daughter. As Rose now runs the town’s funeral home and lives above it, Daisy is desperate to get out. When Rose takes Daisy along with her to the local paper to hand in an obituary (for the beloved town mayor who died in flagrante delicto with a woman who was not his wife), Daisy is fascinated by journalism and determined to get a job there. 

Some fast talking gets the interest of the editor who offers her a summer internship but writing obits (though she’s good at it) bores Daisy who jumps at Fence McMillan’s offer to dig through old newspapers and write a history piece. She latches onto the idea of revisiting the 1928 explosion and telling the story via interviews with survivors. Stunned at the negative reception she gets from various townspeople, Daisy nonetheless forges ahead. But when the last of her four part series has been published, old and well hidden secrets will be unearthed and lives will be changed forever. 

I loved these characters. None of them are perfect. Rather they are flawed in great and small ways that make them come alive. Daisy is intelligent and stubborn, things that Rose immediately remembers in her daughter Lettie who fought against the restrictions on females in the 1940s and finally fled town to escape. Rose is meticulous about her job and proud of the service she supplies but lived a painful life with her husband and in-laws who disliked her. Rose also still mourns her twin sister who died in 1928. 

One of the local pastors was a party boy until that night after which he devoted his life to God, something he never thought or planned to do after a horrible childhood. The stubborn sheriff has devoted his life to the town and its people. He might take an afternoon nap in the office every day but he’ll never leave a job undone. The other reporters take Daisy under their wing and try to give her good advice and photography lessons but warn her to tread lightly as despite the passage of fifty years, the town is still sensitive about its losses. Meanwhile Daisy keeps sending letters to her mother even though she’s yet to hear back from Lettie. 

I did guess a few of the secrets and who was responsible for them. Clues are given and if readers pay attention, not much will be a surprise. But the enjoyment is in watching the various characters interacting, remembering, and coming to terms with events past and present. There is an “epilogue” of sorts which shows what will happen to some characters and allows forgiveness for others which I liked but might be too sappy for some. I’m still debating some of the outcomes. This is not a light and fluffy book though parts are truly funny. I enjoyed watching Rose and Daisy, who are both strong women, as well as revisiting the late 1970s but be warned that there are graphic scenes in the book. B

~Jayne 

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“When the time comes for you to retire, Hugo, if you want a quiet life, don’t settle down in the country. Bury yourself in London or any really large city, and you can live like a hermit, but avoid the outskirts of a village. I am dazed by the ceaseless whirl of activities in which almost everyone in and round Ravenskirk is involved.”

Sara Monteith makes an ideal correspondent for Hugo Jamieson, brother of her lost love Ivo, killed in the war before they could marry. Her neighbours in the lovely Border village of Ravenskirk don’t know that Sara has moved here because it’s where Ivo and Hugo grew up, but they welcome her warmly. Soon, she’s drawn into the active village social scene of tea parties, gardening, carol-singing, and Coronation festivities, dodging the judgments of stern Miss Bonaly, defending her helper Madge Marchbanks, an unwed mother, befriending kind, practical Elizabeth Drysdale and charming Mrs. Currie and her daughter Sylvia (the latter first met halfway through Sara’s drawing room window), and having an embarrassing first encounter with rugged Major Whitburn. Add in her nephew Arthur, neglected by an indifferent father, Arthur’s dog Pam, and even Hugo himself returning unexpectedly from overseas, and Sara’s life is a ‘ceaseless whirl’ indeed!

Review

Furrowed Middlebrow comes through again. Molly Clavering was born in Scotland around the turn of the twentieth century and eventually became a neighbor of DE Stevenson. If the rest of Clavering’s books are like this one, I think I can safely say that if you like Stevenson, you will like Clavering.

The blurb can’t be improved upon. “Dear Hugo” is an epistolary novel in which Sara relates to her should-have-been brother-in-law Hugo everything that goes on in this small Border village. I was never sure of the source of Sara’s money but it has allowed her to purchase a small cottage and to enthusiastically whack away in the garden behind it as well as roam the hills around her. However once her neighbors get their (mostly very nice) hands on her, she is whisked away to various village committees and groups. As she tells Hugo, a small village is more full of things to do than any large city.

Sara enjoys where she is both in place and time. She did choose the village as her lost fiance Ivo and Hugo had grown up here and it’s obvious that she’s seeking some kind of peace. Yet Sara doesn’t mope, cries her tears in private, and seeks to be an open hearted neighbor. As it’s the early 1950s, the older villagers still tend to think in ways that are even then passing out of style.

The lovely Mrs. Keith who lives in the stately Ladymount still has two live-in servants who are fiercely loyal and protective of her. Sara soon gains a local who comes in “to do” for her three times a week. Madge Marchmont had met with a man during the war and is now a single mother (of wee Helen) living with her aunt who sought the position for Madge. The occupants of the cottage near Sara are mysteriously absent and then mysterious after they’re there. A charming family lives close by with a mother who cheerfully manages her brood while dragging Sara into village life.

Then there’s the Major (Sara just knew that the man had some title other than Mr.) Sara met in less than ideal circumstances and his single sister who is both witty and biting. Sara quickly learns to beware of Miss Bonaly who pries information out of people like MI6 and who is less welcome in most houses she just “happens to be passing by” when she arrives on her gossip gathering mission. Then there is Atty, a (IIRC) thirteen year old second cousin who is landed on Sara when his remarried father and new wife head off to Washington, DC. Atty, as Sara soon learns, is a dear boy with a bottomless stomach.

Sara’s rambling letters detail everything for Hugo and for readers. All the village secrets and goings on plus lots of descriptions of the scenery that is obviously so beloved to both Clavering and Stevenson. It’s a nice, easy going novel which really is women’s fiction as it tends to focus on the female characters and how the men relate to them. I wasn’t sure just how it would end but I’m both slightly surprised yet also very satisfied. I’ll leave readers to discover for themselves how things turn out. B+

~Jayne

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Beloved writer Sean Dietrich—also known as Sean of the South—will warm your heart with this rich and nostalgic tale of a small-town sheriff, a mysterious little girl, and a good-hearted community pulling together to help her.

Folks in Moab live for ice cream socials, baseball, and the local paper’s weekly gossip column. Sheriff Winston Browne has watched over Moab with a generous eye for a decade, and by now he’s used to handling the daily dramas that keep life interesting for Moab’s quirky residents.

But just after Winston receives some terrible, life-altering news, a seemingly mute runaway with no clear origin arrives in Moab. The residents do what they believe is right and take her in—until two suspicious strangers arrive and begin looking for her. Suddenly Winston has a child in desperate need of protection—as well as a secret of his own to keep.

With the help of Moab’s goodhearted townsfolk, the humble and well-meaning Winston Browne still has some heroic things to do. He finds romance, family, and love in unexpected places. He stumbles upon adventure, searches his soul, and grapples with the past. In doing so, he just might discover what a life well-lived truly looks like.

Sometimes ordinary people do the most extraordinary things of all.

CW/TW – (not a spoiler) The main character has malignant cancer. A drowned corpse is described. 

Dear Mr. Dietrich, 

Well, two for two. I’m a latecomer to your books but I am a convert to their goodness. Unlike Nub Taylor in “Kinfolk,” Sheriff Winston Browne is a good man. A very good man. And unlike many good men, he actually gets the appreciation he deserves from many, if not most, of the people who love and admire him. Few can say that. 

To local residents it was covered dish socials, municipal meetings, and a bunch of people minding your business. To Eleanor Hughes, it was a river town full of millworkers, drunks, old biddies, Sunday school students whose sole purpose in life was to make her life miserable, and women who got old many years before they became elderly.

The book is set, deeply set, in the 1950s of a small town in the Florida panhandle. It’s a nice town, with mostly nice people making their homes and their lives there. At least I don’t recall meeting up with any bad ‘uns from Moab. As the story opens, Winston and two of his friends are working on a baseball field. They’d all played when younger but now age is catching up to them. For Winston, the cancer he probably owes to smoking his way across Europe in the Infantry during WWII is making its presence known, too. This is something that Winston has decided to keep to himself. I can understand that as he is in his early fifties and is the type of man who just shoulders on and doesn’t complain.

Winston was still thinking about the peculiar look on Eleanor’s face when he spun her. A look that was worth its weight in hot chicken casserole. A little bit of surprise. A little bit of caution. A little bit of unexpected excitement making an appearance. In other words, youth. It was the feeling of youth. Winston had almost forgotten what that felt like.

Eleanor Hughes is also a lifelong Methodist like Winston, and it is during the wedding of her niece (Eleanor did all the flowers for it) while she sits beside her lifelong swain who never set a date with her, that she realizes she’s had enough of waiting for him. She settled into being an old woman way before her time and she’s through. Dumbfounded Jimmy has no idea what he’s done – or not done per Eleanor. 

Eleanor caught a glimpse of herself in the dining room mirror. She was shocked at how dowdy she looked. Never before had she realized what an old woman she was. She touched her hair. Jimmy had aged her. He’d given her an excuse to stay frozen in 1902 like Ma Kettle. No more. Eleanor Hughes was finished looking like a dishwashing, pea-shelling old biddy.

When she finished draping the dough over each tin, she trimmed the excess with scissors, then gathered the remnants into a ball, flattened it with a rolling pin, and gave the lump a stern warning not to mess with her. Then she went to town on it, laughing like a villain in an old movie.

                
         
Young Jessie is amazed at the new world around her but not so amazed that she won’t lick the three snots in the car along with her as Sister Johanna drives them south and away from the cult in which Jessie has lived all her life. The Brethren don’t like uppityness, sin, or going against church leaders but it only slowly dawns on Jessie that she’s running for her life. 

Buz Guilford and his friend PJ are searching for his granddad, the town drunk. Buzz both loves and hates his granddad who drinks up every penny he can find, beg, or steal. The old man also siphons gas to sell and has taught Buz the skills although Buz and his mother, a survivor of polio, prefer to work – his mother doing double shifts at the mill and Buzz dropping out of school to take on supporting them all. 

He fell facedown on his bed and cried into his mattress. Because Buz did not want to be the man of the house. He wanted to be fourteen. He wanted to be normal.

And then there are three (frankly they sound crazy) religious fanatics who are searching for young Jessie and another whom they are determined will not escape the due justice for their sins. Oh, and Moabites are true Brooklyn Dodgers fans (yes, way down in Florida) faithfully following the 1955 season.

As with “Kinfolk” this book took me back a bit. Not all the way back to 1955 mind you but to a small town in which my mother grew up and which I visited each summer to see my grandparents. Life was slower and centered around farming and the Methodist Church (though the Baptists and Presbyterians were also there). The local newspaper didn’t go quite as much into the details of everyone’s lives as the Social Graces column does here but yes, everyone knew everyone and what they were up to. I could easily picture this town with its local merchants, people who were (as was Eleanor) fourth generation Moabites, one main business street, and making due with only one police squad car. 

But it’s the people I fell in love with. They are human. They are flawed. They are hard working (even the old men who sit all day in the mercantile) and just a little bit jealous of Pensacola with its two movie theaters and Chinese restaurant. Children play outside and the sidewalks are neatly rolled up at dusk. When Jessie arrives, hunted and looking to keep running, Eleanor, Jimmy (who forgives Jessie for beaning him with a can of carrots), Winston, and Buz step up. 

Jessie had almost forgotten about vices. In her time in Moab she had grown to love vices like jawbreakers, wax soda bottles filled with what tasted like cough syrup, sourballs so incredibly sour your face would actually be sucked right into your mouth, and of course Mary Janes. She had also grown to love television, colorful clothes, world geography, long division, comic books, music, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hallowed be their names.

The everyday events here including the morning scrabble games and the Halloween trick-or-treating are a delight. Watching Winston take over a preacher-less funeral and do right by the grieving is just what this man does. He helps maintain Buzz’s pride, sets him straight, and makes sure his mama isn’t embarrassed. He also teaches Buz to dance so he can make a stab at doing more than mooning over Becky at the social.  
  

Winston ignored this remark. “Give the boy a chance. I’m asking you as a friend. I wanna do right by him. He needs something permanent. When I’m gone, the new sheriff won’t owe Buz anything.”
The words lodged in Jimmy’s ears and stayed there for a few seconds. Jimmy looked back at the boy, who was leaning on the counter like a telephone pole with legs. “Dadgum you, Winston Browne.”

The various threads of the plot are carefully gathered together in a way that shows how neatly they’d been spun out over the course of the book. If the final chapters are a bit drawn out, they also serve to show how beloved Sheriff Browne is and give Eleanor an opportunity to hand out some sage wisdom. The ending, yeah it made me cry and it hurt but I knew it was coming and I wouldn’t have missed the ride. B+ 

~Jayne

“What can we do, Win?” said Eleanor.         
         Winston’s eyes immediately pinkened. His voice broke, and it stabbed Eleanor’s heart. Jimmy bit his lip and closed his eyes.
         Tommy turned his back to the group.  
         “Nothing,” Winston said. “Just don’t forget me when I’m gone.”

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Sometimes it’s the most unlikely meetings that give us life’s greatest gifts.

1970s, Southern Alabama. Sixty-two-year-old Jeremiah Lewis Taylor, or “Nub,” has spent his whole life listening to those he’s loved telling him he’s no good—first his ex-wife, now his always-disapproving daughter. Sure, his escapades have made him, along with his cousin and perennial sidekick, Benny, just a smidge too familiar with small town law enforcement, but he’s never harmed anyone—except perhaps himself.

Nub never meant to change his ways, but when he and fifteen-year-old Waffle House waitress Minnie form an unlikely friendship, he realizes for the first time that there may be some good in him after all. Six-foot-five Minnie has been dealt a full deck of bad luck—her father is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, her mother is dead and buried, and she has a Grand Ole Opry–worthy singing voice with no place to perform. Oh, and there’s the small fact that she’s unexpectedly pregnant, courtesy of a no-good high-school boy.

Gradually, Nub realizes the gift he’s been given: a second chance to make a difference.

Beloved Southern writer Sean Dietrich, also known as Sean of the South, once again brings people and places to life in this lyrical song-turned-story about found family, second chances, country music, and the poignant power of love and forgiveness.

CW/TW – suicide, alcoholism, cancer, teen pregnancy, bullying

In Alabama, “Drive safe” is code for “I love you.” There are different versions of this phrase, of course. But the words all mean the same thing. They all carry the same spirit. In central Alabama, one variation of this phrase is, “Be careful, the cops are out tonight.” In northern regions of the state, people say, “Y’all be safe going home.” Others might say, “Watch out for deer.” 
Either way, the specific words are inconsequential; they all convey the same meaning: You matter to me. You’re important to me. Keep your high beams on. Keep both hands on the wheel. Deer are homicidal. Eavesdrop at any Alabamian get-together, from women’s Bible studies to Veterans of Foreign Wars halls, from Boy Scout rallies to bunco games, and at the end of the night, you won’t hear I-love-yous uttered. Not even among families. You will, however, hear the “drive safe” invocation used about fifty or sixty times.

Dear Mr. Dietrich,

This book is a country and western song in the making. Most of the plot can probably already be found in various country and western songs. Well maybe not the C-4 but most of the rest. Love, drinking, regret, heartache, exes, anger, love, regret, drinking, singing, family, lost love, drinking, second chances, regret, drinking, family, prison, parole, drinking, love, and second chances. Yep, that about covers it. When I read the blurb I crossed my fingers and asked to read it, hoping it would be similar – in a 1970s way – to “The Big Finish” which also centers around an older man, his friend, and a young woman needing a helping hand. To my delight, it is.
    
If you are a Southerner, you will probably know, be related to or have someone like one of these people in your life. Said person has probably Been Discussed at family gatherings with a smile, a sigh, and/or some heavy eye rolling. “Lord, what is soandso up to now??” You might even be one of these characters. If you are not a Southerner, you will probably be horrified at these people. You might sneer, curl a lip in disgust, sniff disparagingly, and thank whatever power you believe in that you are not from here or related to anyone like them thankyouverymuch. 

I am a Southerner – born and bred – and while this is not quite a homecoming for me, I’ve lived in and been around small Southern towns, had extended family around me, been to services in small, rural churches, and my daddy was an alcoholic. He wasn’t as publicly bad as Nub but dad and I, in many ways, were like Nub and his daughter Emily. There were wounds, there were scars, there were regrets. 

Though the book is laced with wry, deadpan humor – and I laughed Out Loud a whole bunch of times – there are some painful things as well. The book starts off with a load of them including a two suicides and a drunken rampage by Nub as he attempts to escape the long arm of the law. It doesn’t go well for him but frankly, he lives in a small town, works for the county government, and everyone knows where he lives so it wasn’t like he was going to evade anything. Sigh … sometimes the liquor drives Nub to do things he shouldn’t. 

Nub knows he’s been a disappointment to his friends and family. But, in his defense, he has an Incident from his youth which was followed by a year in a youth asylum (because his mama couldn’t cope with the first Incident) that would leave lifelong wounds on most people much less an eleven year old boy. Nub knows he shouldn’t have done a lot that he’s done – heck the whole town knows it – but alcohol is a powerful mistress and Nub doesn’t seem to have an off-switch once he starts. 

Minnie and Nub first meet in the hospital. It’s a small town with a small hospital so I didn’t bat an eye that an older man and teen girl would be recovering in the same room. Later when Nub sees Minnie being bullied by a teen snot – heck the whole town knows Philip is a little pissant – and his minions it lights a fire in Nub. He might have messed up being there for his own daughter but he’s going to help Minnie even if that requires filling out “thirty miles of documents” and attending a parenting class so he can foster this young teen who has no one. Everyone – including his daughter (who is a little jealous) and his ex – tells him he’s insane but Nub is a man on a mission.  

Minnie is a sweet teen who has always been teased because of her height and who believed a pissant when he said he would love her if she just agreed to sex. Now she’s pregnant, an orphan and due to Nub’s sense of mission, finally in a home where she can relax, take hot showers, and wear clothes that fit and aren’t falling apart. She can’t believe her luck. Nub’s cat Wyatt likes her, too.  

What no one knows is that Minnie’s father isn’t dead and is out on parole. Right, the man who worked for organized crime, ripped them off, and then accidentally killed a man leading to fifteen years in the slammer where his height and size made him a target. The men dressed all in black and driving a white caddy who follow Sugar make no attempt to evade Shug’s notice. That’s part of the intimidation. They also begin harassing Minnie – and by extension Nub – to mess with Shug and get their money back. But no one is messing with his daughter and if he has to camp out in the woods near Nub’s house and keep watch – and also get his hands on some C-4, as Shug was a demolition man in the Army – he will. 

The myth of absent fathers is that they are careless and selfish. But sometimes the opposite is also true. Sometimes absent fathers care too much. Sometimes they’re drunks. And sometimes drunks know they’re drunks. Sometimes, contrary to what you’ve been told, drunks don’t want to screw up your life. So they stay away.

Emily Ives initially thinks her father is nuts to take on a foster teen. Emily is also a bit pissed that, through Minnie, Nub appears to want to make up for all he missed in Emily’s life. Emily is also hiding a secret that she discovered after dealing with yet another Thanksgiving from hell. Yet as she watches her father actually seem to reform himself – except for the smoking as you can only give up so much at a time as AA knows – Emily does what Southern women do, she brings food and tries to help including a wild ride to the hospital with a teen in labor in the backseat of her car. 

Somehow all of the plot threads come together in the end. It’s wild but what else should I have expected from this book? As I mentioned earlier, I laughed my ass off at times and blinked back a tear at others. Some things cut close while many, many others brought me good memories as I know the South and I lived through 1972. Boomers and Gen Xers will know a lot of these things first hand. The book has sass, heart, and people triumphing over the odds against them. It will not be for everyone but I inhaled the 400 pages in two days and loved it. It will break your heart and then put it back together. A-         

~Jayne 
   

Because Minnie had come to believe that life was not about finding miracles, or happiness, or success, or purpose, or about avoiding disappointment. It was about finding people. People are what make life worth it. People are the buried treasure. People who understand you. People who will bleed with you. People who make your life richer. Your people. Your kinfolk.

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It’s wintertime at Greenglass House. The creaky smuggler’s inn is always quiet during this season, and twelve-year-old Milo, the innkeepers’ adopted son, plans to spend his holidays relaxing. But on the first icy night of vacation, out of nowhere, the guest bell rings. Then rings again. And again. Soon Milo’s home is bursting with odd, secretive guests, each one bearing a strange story that is somehow connected to the rambling old house. As objects go missing and tempers flare, Milo and Meddy, the cook’s daughter, must decipher clues and untangle the web of deepening mysteries to discover the truth about Greenglass House—and themselves.

Review:

Dear Kate Milford,

I actually bought this book for my niece a few years ago in hardcover and promptly forgot about it. Recently however I heard a review on YouTube from a blogger who recommended this book as part of the comfort books for adults and kids alike and I figured, why not.

Let me be clear, this is a kids book. I believe the reading age is listed as 10-12 years old and while I can easily reread several childhood favorites quite a few times, I very rarely even attempt new books listed for this age group written in English – more often than not it ends up just being too simplistic for me as an adult and I abandon it. I am however very happy that I read this book and going to try the second one in the series. I believe that there are five books, however the story is complete in this book and you don’t need to continue if you don’t want to.

This is a mystery story, but this is also a story of growing up, of trying to figure out where and how you belong in your family and in the world. I really liked Milo and was sympathetic to his doubts and uncertainties where he fits in his family as an adopted child despite knowing very well that his adoptive parents love him deeply and he loved them back.

The blurb gives a great set up for the mystery without giving anything away. The mystery plot was connected in many ways to the House Milo and his parents lived in. The blurb says that it was a smugglers hotel and I guess I can mention that. Milo’s parents are not smugglers but as they say at some point in the story they don’t go to the police to give evidence if some smuggler stays there for some time (paraphrase). Folks of the small town they lived in actually seem quite supportive of smugglers because I guess they bring goods that helps break up the monopoly of the big business or something like that :).

So during a cold winter day some interesting guests arrive to the House and the events begin to unfold. It is not very fast moving story, but I did not find it super slow either and I absolutely thought it very charming and indeed comforting.

I liked the characters very much and certainly look forward to more.

Grade: B+

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