Savannah Blues Book

This is probably a 3-star book, but I actually liked it enough to give it four.

In fairness, I should say that there were a few things working in this book's favor independent of its objective quality. One was timing - I've had a run of heavy non-fiction books, some of which were highly depressing, and was craving something light and undemanding. The resulting contrast effect between this book and the others I've been reading probably made me more forgiving than I otherwise would be. The other was the reader on this audiobook. Aside from her charming southern accent, her wry inflections sounded exactly the way I would have expected the heroine to sound and successfully increased the book's humor quotient.

With that said, I actually enjoyed this book more than I expected to. Eloise ("Weezie" - what is WITH these Southern nicknames? Skeeter? Weezie? Tater?) Foley, newly divorced and living in back of her ex-husband and his new fiancée (she refused to leave their property and was awarded the carriage house in back in the divorce settlement), is scraping together an income as a free-lance antiques collector (a.k.a. garbage picker) and dessert baker for her friend Bebe's new restaurant. When the book opens, Weezie is in an entertaining perpetual "spite fight" with her ex's fiancée, who is suitably bitchy without being too over-the-top. Later, when the fiancée comes up murdered by a gun with Weezie's fingerprints on it and Weezie is found at the scene, Weezie's life is thrown into a tailspin. Weezie is further discombobulated by a budding romance with Bebe's new chef, who happens to be someone Weezie dated in high school and turns out to be far better-looking and more suave than Weezie remembers.

This book did have some of the hallmark chick lit clichés which tend to annoy me. The chef-boyfriend is gorgeous, generous, caring, socially adept, and magically interested in the same things Weezie is (typical guy interests like decorating his home and cooking). He passionately pursues the reluctant Weezie who is attracted to him but feels gun-shy after her divorce. To make the chef-boyfriend complete, he comes with a dark and mysterious past which later proves to be a red herring that merely makes him more sympathetic (beneath the tough exterior lies a poor, wounded man who can only be soothed by the attentions of our heroine). His perfection is occasionally marred by contrived misunderstandings between the two of them which appear to be thrown in just to increase the tension, and that's about as complex as the relationship gets.

I also have to go on a little rant here about sex scenes. I know this is at least partially influenced by my religious background, but I'm just not a fan of these play-by-plays that make me feel like I'm right there in the bedroom with the happy couple. It's worse on an audiobook when you can't just scan the page for where it ends. When reviews of the book include adjectives like "hot" or "spicy," I know I'm in for it, and this book had plenty of hot and spicy. I read a wide range of books. I have yet to read a detailed sex scene that actually enhances the story. Note to authors: remember the movie "Psycho," where you see the woman's face screaming and blood pooling at the shower drain but not the actual step-by-step mechanics of the killing? Much more effective, in my opinion. Enough said.

Mystery fans reading this book may be disappointed by the fact that the mystery itself is, at best, a subplot. In addition to the romance and the mystery there were several side stories going on at once, some of which were pretty superfluous. Weezie's lawyer uncle, whose viewpoint was included for no apparent reason other than to have someone constantly reminding us how great he thinks Weezie is, had a whole subplot around his homosexuality - nothing graphic, but nothing that particularly enhanced the story either. Weezie's mother's closet alcoholism and its worsening, a pretty serious issue in my opinion, seemed out of place in a story which was ostensibly intended to be light and entertaining.

For all its various plots, though, I would actually describe this book as largely character-driven. The characters themselves could be fun to read about, although they tended to be over-the-top at times. I did like Weezie, who was slightly less Mary Sue-ish than the usual chick lit heroine. Weezie's antique-collecting exploits also offered an interesting angle. It's an unusual pastime and as a determined antique collector, Weezie didn't hesitate to resort to all kinds of original tactics to snag her deals. I also enjoyed the depiction of Savannah as a gossipy southern town with its own social norms.

In the final analysis, while I suspect that I may have rated this lower had I read it at a different time or not listened to it on audio, I did enjoy the experience and will therefore err on the side of generosity.