Customer Reviews

Dixie Divas

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

"Dixie Divas," by award winning author Virginia Brown, is book one of the Diva Series. The Divas are a group of 12 women from the small town of Cherry Hill, Mississippi, about 45 minutes from Memphis, Tennessee. Membership stays as 12, those who drop out, die, or move away are replaced by a majority vote. This eclectic group holds a very private monthly meeting with chocolate and alcohol being the main staples.

In Book One, we meet main characters of Eureka Truevine, aka Trinket, a 51 year old divorcee who just moved back to Cherry Hill to take care of her parents and her cousin Elisabeth Truevine Hollander age 52, aka Bitty, and recently divorced from her fourth husband Senator Hollander. We also get to see get the history of the area and the people, and great descriptions of a slice of southern small town living.

In this well-written murder mystery, the Senator ends up dead and police suspect Bitty. From an old family secret to a traitorous Diva, Trinket and Bitty manage to solve the mystery and find a bit of love just before they end up like the Senator. With the flavor of the Ya-Ya sisters and the Sweet Potato Queens, this contemporary, romantic mystery is a true southern delight. With lots of history about the area and descriptions of southern living and cooking, this story keeps the reader entertained and mystified until the end.


Review by Steve (hubby)

I read this book because it was free. I had no idea what to expect from it though. I had fun reading it and at times (especially when the Diva's were up to their escapades) the movie 9 to 5 with Lilly Tomlin and Dolly Parton came to mind. It was an easy read with a fun little mystery line. Worth a read!

i got this for free, so i really can't complain much, but i have to admit to being disappointed. i enjoy books about strong, unconventional women, but this is not one of them. the narrating character, trinket, "talked" a lot, but her behavior didn't match her words. none of the characters had much focus, verbally wandering off in the middle of crises in a way that was supposed to be charming but was instead just irritating. the eccentrics, which are indeed embraced with enthusiasm in the south, are shallow and colorless. i wish ms. brown well, but i do not think i will be joining her flat version of divas from dixie on any more "adventures" in mediocrity any time soon. bless their hearts.

I bought this book because it was cheap and the descriptive paragraph intrigued me. I really got more than I expected and way more than my money's worth. It was serious, funny, totally southern. I can see these things happening to me and my friends. I'm sure some people would say that it was a stretch of the imagination, but they obviously have never been down south. I really loved this book. It made you feel good to read it. I think everyone should give it a chance. Remember it is cheap and maybe didn't get all the editing attention it needed...some missed words, etc. Just overlook it and go on...you know what they are saying. Loved it.

This is one of those Southern cozies that you're either going to relax and get into the groove with and totally enjoy, or you're going to hang onto your tightly wrapped expectations and hate it. The people who call these ladies "unbelievable characters" obviously never met any real Southern women. I could see vignettes of almost everyone I know in these pages (good or bad). I applaud Virginia for her publishing success...it's tough to find an agent and publisher who understands the unique flavor of a truly Southern book. Love 'em or hate 'em, the Dixie Divas are not only unique but 'real.'

I like Southern Gal books event hough I'm a Midwest girl living out of the US. This was boring, amateurish.Trinket and the other Divas were like cartoon characters.Every Southern caricature was here. But what offended me most was the Viet Nam War deaths of her brothers, which she wrote about several times.If Trinket was 52 she would have been 11 during the Tet Offensive in 1968.How could her younger brother die there.I hate historical mistakes.sloppy writing at it's worst.This book had no Southern charm.It did have a cute cover.It was an overpriced silly book.Won't read her again.

Charming likable characters, truly representative of Southern Belles, comically so in their early fifties. Accurate capture of the local area and it's color (I lived near Holly Springs for about 8 years).
Hilarious situations. Held my interest, kept turning pages (clicking my Kindle) not wanting to stop, anxious to know what's around the next corner.

I lOVED THIS BOOK. A GOOD FUNNY MYSTERY, I FOUND MYSELF LAUGHING OUT LOUD! IF YOU ARE FROM THE SOUTH YOU WILL APPRECIATE THIS BOOK.

I got this for free and am so happy I didn't pay even a penny for it. I'd still like my time back. The story is not believable from the start, the characters are not likable, attempts at humor just really aren't funny, the narrator rambles SLOWLY for chapters and chapters on and on and on about nothing interesting (OK, other than her parents; they were cute) in between the handful of mystery related crumb tosses that were just enough to make me suffer through to the end. All that, and then the ending was hardly worth the agony of getting there. The last quarter of the book at least moved faster because the narrator had probably run out of uninteresting things to say. I am just so glad that it is finally over.

This book was so filled with "fluff" I finally gave up reading it. Having lived in the south over 50 years I found the descriptions (which had some basis of fact) of women and events dull and wordy.