Customer Reviews

Hot Fudge Sundae Blues: A Novel

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It's 1963 and after numerous Sunday altar calls, 13-year-old Layla Jay decides it is time to seek salvation. Never mind that she was pretending to be "saved" and that she feels a certain amount of guilt. Layla Jay wanted to make her grandmother happy, get noticed by a boy and besides, she had been dramatically playing out the scene for a long time. And it played just like a movie.

Religion becomes more interesting to Layla Jay when a handsome preacher comes to stay at her family's home. Wallace gives Layla Jay his attention until the beautiful Frieda (Layla Jay's mother) waltzes back home. Wallace and Frieda marry and for a brief moment Layla Jay believes she'll have the father she lost to death at age two. She soon learns that Wallace is not as he seems and her mother's childish and reckless behavior places Layla Jay and herself at risk. During this troublesome time, Layla Jay has to deal with her best friend's betrayal and a boy who can't seem to make a decision about who he loves. Ultimately it is an act of love and sacrifice to protect her daughter that places Frieda at risk. It is a lie told by Layla Jay that just might keep her life and that of her mother's from disintegrating.

I love Bev Marshall's ability to tell intriguing stories. She mixes a bit of humor with a whole lot of tragedy. She also introduces us to humanity in the form of her rich and complex characters that you hate to say good-bye to when the last page has been read. I can't wait to see what she writes next. And you'd better believe I'll be waiting for its release. And none too patiently I might add.

Armchair Interviews says: You'll also enjoy Walking Through Shadows and Right as Rain.

Basically, I had nothing in common with Layla Jay's character except that I was a girl, had once been a teenager, have a mother and feared God! This was more than enough to connect to this intensely fascinating story of a wonderfully, interesting family that basically struggles to survive and find a greater understanding of things beyond our control. The characters are interesting, sometimes charming and mostly flawed! This is what makes it a great story because on some levels it is a true reflection of humankind!
Great work Bev!

I picked up this book after reading "Walking through the Shadows" by Bev Marshall. That was a great book, she is such a talented storyteller. However, I must say though, I loved this book more. I will not give away any hints as to what this book is about. There was one point when I felt that if I did not finish the book that I would come apart with worry and angst over Layla Jay's situation. Ms. Marshall really grabbed me with this one and I really, couldn't put it down.

In 1963 at the Pisgah Methodist Church, thirteen years old Layla Jay week after week disappoints her grandma by not accepting Brother Thompson's offer of salvation. Grandma fears that her only grandchild will follow the sinning examples of her husband and her daughter. However when Jehu Albright comes to the church Layla Jay decides to impress this teenage Steve McQueen hunk of a boy by accepting Brother Thompson's prayers.

However God answers in mysertious ways as she sees Jehu with another "woman", her drunken mother marries Brother Wallace Ebert and is in a car accident, and grandma dies. When Ebert starts with twitching her nose and leering at her, but soon tries to rape Layla Jay, her mom intercedes with a 7-Up bottle. Life will never be the same in this household.

HOT FUDGE SUNDAE BLUES is more than a historical perspective glimpse of the 1960s in small town Mississippi; although that provides the background, the tale is more a deep family drama that looks closely at love between extended kin in spite of flaws, and deception and dishonesty to hide these defects from loved ones. What makes a loving relationship is not just shared gene pool, but the ability to forgive not necessarily to forget even the biggest transgressions. Bev Marshall provides a powerful perspective of the good, the bad, and the ugly of human interactivity.

Harriet Klausner

This book was a great read, that captured not only my attention, but my heart.I was surprised because when I saw the title-I believed I wouldn't like it at all. Yet, I became captivated by the main character/narrator Layla Jay and her rural family's experiences in Mississippi during the 60's. Eventhough the book is set back in that time frame, the author manages to write a story about a family's struggle,hardtimes and goodtimes-that very well could have been about a family of today.

I found some of the stories laugh-out-loud funny, like Pawpa's mishaps with the hen,etc. Then others, like the slimy "saved-again" stepfather Wallace's actions toward Layla Jay, nearly left me in tears. Very very good book. I want to read more by this author now and I would recommend others to do the same.

Bev Marshall's third novel, Hot Fudge Sundae Blues, begins with thirteen year old narrator, Layla Jay faking her own salvation to impress a boy at church.

The novel is a coming-of-age story set in the 1960's, in the small town of Zebulon, Mississippi. Layla Jay lives a quiet life on a farm with her mother, Frieda and her grandparents. Her mother marries Wallace, a so-called man of God who turns out to be phony. Frieda doesn't care whether or not Wallace is religious, as a matter of fact, she prefers it when he goes out drinking and dancing with her since she only married him so she and Layla Jay could move away from the farm. Layla Jay is uncomfortable around Wallace, and rightly so. Their lives together, under one roof, throw Layla Jay's world into a tailspin and when a problem arises, Layla Jay finds herself doing two things: praying and lying. Not always in that order, but always praying and lying. She means well, and we know it. Her mother means well and we are forgiving of her as well.

The first half of the book is filled with problems that seem somewhat disjointed; however the second half deals with the consequences of choices and the complexities of familial love. Layla Jay talks with God every step of the way, but this novel is not about Layla Jay's relationship with God, it isn't even about her relationship with Wallace even though he is the reason for so many of her problems. This novel is about relationships with those we love-for Layla Jay it is about her grandma who longs to see her family saved by Jesus, her best friend June who harbors an aching secret, her relationship with her fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants mother, and her first love, a sweet boy named Jehu.

In Marshall's first two novels, she made us fall in love with her characters. Once again, Marshall makes us fall in love with Layla Jay and Frieda despite their elaborate lies and poor judgment.

Even more, Marshall does what all great story tellers do-she gets you to keep turning the pages. The chapter endings are seamless and filled with questions that force you on to the next chapter, while the tone and pace is strong and steady. The novel is an easy, fairly quick read and the action is not loud. It doesn't have to be. Marshall knows how to pique our curiosity bit by bit without ever insulting our intelligence as readers, and in Hot Fudge Sundae Blues she has done just that.
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