This book was a little slow to start, but I was pleasantly surprised the further I got into it. Humor, intrigue, and a plotline. Stephanie Plum of the South. ( )

When Savannah lands a job at the local newspaper right after graduation, her attempts to write the perfect article lead to both mystery and discovery.

Denise Hildreth, has produced a winning character in Savannah. She is bright ,spunky, irrelevant about most matters of extreme importance to her Mama, Victoria. This book is witty intelligent and great fun to read. I will find the other Savannah books and read them too. ( )

Plot Summary: What happens, When & Where, Central Characters, Major Conflicts
Savannah returns to her hometown of, well, Savannah where her mother is the local tourism director. Savannah is peeved at her mother, for she thinks that she meddled with a fiction contest that she entered so that Savannah would win. Savannah, who has just graduated from college, is determined to make it on her own merits. So she arrives in town determined to get a job at the local newspaper, which she does by marching in and acting just like her headstrong mother. Savannah now has to prove herself with her first column, and while digging through the files of her predecessor she finds a lead on a possible scandal involving area Beauty Pageants. Which is great, except that her mother just happens to be a former Beauty Pageant queen.


Style Characterisics: Pacing, clarity, structure, narrative devices, etc.
The story has a very light, breezy tone, although the lesson Savannah learns about being mindful of other people's feelings is important enough to pay attention too. Despite the initial friction between Savannah and her mother, her family comes across as very loving and supportive of each other, her father in particular seems too good to be true. It's just that Savannah, in the way of most "chick lit" heroines, has a way of overreacting to everything--which gives the reader a lot of laughs.

How Good is it?
Fun, full of amusing characters, with a nice mystery and a good moral. ( )

November 2006 ( )