Bet Your Bottom Dollar

 By Karin Gillespie

First book in the Bottom Dollar Girls series.

Elizabeth works in a dollar store in a small town in South Carolina. She doesn't expect much from life and views herself as very ordinary. She is also recovering from being dumped by her fiancé who left her for another woman. 

A friend introduces Elizabeth to her grandson, Timothy Hollingsworth, who has come home to run the family business, a paper company. The friend talks Elizabeth into giving Timothy a chance and they start dating. At first, it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and Elizabeth is getting discouraged. She enjoys being with Timothy but can't figure out why he doesn't seem like he wants a more intimate relationship. Turns out that he is a bit on the shy side and it isn't much longer before he pops the question and the two of them have a quickie wedding and are married. 

Problems arise because of questions about both of their pasts. For instance, why does Elizabeth look so much like Timothy's grandmother when she was a young woman? Who was the mysterious man Elizabeth's mother was involved with before she married Elizabeth's father, a man she only refers to in her diary as B? And why did Timothy's parents treat him so coldly that he feels so disconnected to both his mother and his father, who is no longer alive? 

Meanwhile, the man who dumped Elizabeth is back trying to win her over again, claiming that he made a terrible mistake and he never stopped loving her.

This was an OK read. This one was also supposed to be funny but wasn't. I did enjoy reading it and I enjoyed the mystery but it just never seemed to be the "delight" the blurbs promised. Or that I would "laugh myself sick" reading it. Neither of those things happened. It was fine. But not interesting enough to entice to read the other two books in the series.

Kirkus Reviews has a review of the novel.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

 

By Marina Lewycka

Nikolai is 84 years old and in love with a 36 year old Ukrainian woman named Valentina. Nikolai is also Ukrainian but he immigrated to the UK after WW II. 

Nikolai has two middle aged daughters, Nadezhda and Vera. Not surprisingly, the two daughters are strongly opposed to Nikolai's involvement with Valentina. They try to reason with their father, pointing out that the woman is just looking to establishing a residence in Britain by marrying a British citizen. He doesn't listen. Valentina is a very attractive sexy woman and he has fallen under her spell.

Nikolai does marry her and it soon become clear that she wants whatever she can get out of him. It also becomes clear that she married him believing he had way more money than he really has. She is constantly after him for more money, more things, more access to his savings. It also becomes clear that Nikolai is not the only man she has dangling after her. And that she was probably a prostitute back in Ukraine. Nikolai remains smitten and spends too much money trying to satisfy her many demands. 

His two daughters intervene and convince him to file for a divorce. He is reluctant but agrees to file. He continues to waffle on going through with it though. When Valentina was with him, he could fool himself about himself. This cannot last, though, because she comes pushy and angry and threatens him. She eventually leaves his house, along with her teenage son. Though she no longer lives with Nikolai, she still pops in and out of his house and his life, trying to squeeze more money out of him, even trying to gain possession of his house. He is lucky that he has two daughters who do what it takes to protect their vulnerable father from the predacious Valentina.

This was an OK read. The four of them, the father, the two daughters and Valentina struggle against each other, first one is on top and then the other is on top and always there is Nikolai's indecision. He just liked thinking of himself as the manly 84 year old with the sexy young wife, the envy of all the other men. Never mind her selfishness and greed and bad character. It isn't even about the sex, which doesn't go much beyond the fondling stage. 

My main problem with the story, other than that it was way too long, is that it is not funny. The reviews said it was funny. The blurbs on the cover said it was funny. It wasn't. I wanted funny.

Back to B.C.

 

By Johnny Hart

Excerpts from Hart's daily comic strip, B.C. from the late 1950s to early 1960s. Second book in this series.

Hart's B.C. comic strip is charming, funny, innocent and the humor holds up more than sixty years later. A pleasure to visit this collection again. 

I Still Dream About You

 

By Fannie Flagg

Margaret Fortenberry is a beautiful woman. She was so pretty that she had a real chance to be crowned Miss America. But unfortunately, she was Miss Alabama at the time of the civil rights struggle and the state of Alabama did not welcome the reforms. And so the judges of the Miss America pageant decided picking Miss Alabama would be too controversial. And so Maggie missed her chance at big time success. Truth is, beyond being staggeringly good looking, she really didn't have much to offer the world. She wasn't particularly talented or smart and, even though beautiful, she was too short to make in the world of high fashion modelling. And so, she ended back in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, selling real estate. She never married and she never had children, she lives alone without even a pet to keep her company. And now in her early sixties, she is seriously planning to kill herself.

But daily life keeps getting in the way of Maggie executing her plan. She keeps having to put it off to handle the problems that just refuse to stop popping up and getting in her way. Until finally, things calm down enough for her to put the plan in motion. Her clothing has been donated, credit cards paid off, utilities cancelled, bank account closed, key hidden under the doormat and a goodbye letter left on the table in her apartment. Nothing and no one to stop her. 

Maggie's sorrow and disappointment with the mistakes of the past and with the loneliness of her declining years are understandable. I suppose most people in their later years look back and regret wrong decisions, I know I do. For one, I wish that I'd finished college. Maggie has her regrets too, mainly that she turned the hometown boy down when he proposed to her, instead heading off to New York to make it in the big city. Part of her depression is rooted the death of the woman she worked for at the real estate office who died very suddenly and unexpectedly. This woman, Hazel, was successful, driven, and, at the same time, kind and considerate of her fellow humans and of the people who worked for her. Her death left a painful void in Maggie's life and without her leadership, the company is struggling. 

So, although I did understand Maggie's suicidal depression, [SPOILER] I have read several Fannie Flagg novels over the years and I really doubted she would end up dead. She was the perfect heroine of a Fannie Flagg story, beautiful, kind, good natured. There was no way Fannie was going to let her kill herself. I did find it a bit amusing how fate keeps Maggie from going through with her plan. 

It was a good story even if Maggie seems a bit clueless throughout the novel. She's a sweet lady and she certainly got her happy ending. In spades!

Kirkus Reviews has a review of this novel.