In Search of Rhett Butler [Paperback]

Sharron Haynes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 16, 2005

What typical Southern girl who grew up in the decades of the 40’s and 50’s hadn’t wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara — especially if she happened to be the namesake of that character? Born on the very day and at the precise time Gone With the Wind premiered in Atlanta, Scarlett Harwood’s destiny had simply collided with the stars, or so went the thinking of her dreamy-eyed, melodramatic young mother whose address was Cloud Nine.

It was on her fifteenth birthday that Scarlett Harwood finally saw the movie from which her name had come. From the moment Vivien Leigh’s character materialized on the screen until the credits rolled, the girl was mesmerized, dumbstruck by the twinship she saw between herself and that young belle. It felt to her like someone had crawled inside her head, excised her brain, and planted it in the head of Scarlett O’Hara. She left the theatre that day still dabbing her tears, convinced that she was the reincarnation of the heroine — with one exception. She was smarter. She would never repeat O’Hara’s mistakes. Never.

Neither would she repeat those of her mother, Tessa. She would get it right. Unlike both Scarlett O’Hara and Tessa, once she found her perfect man, she would never let him go.

That was the plan.

Then came Jacob Stevenson.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sharron Haynes, a native of Monroe, Louisiana, resides in Arizona where she has been a real estate broker for over twenty years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (March 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595334857
• ISBN-13: 978-0595334858
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,178,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Coming of age tale and a lott much, January 16, 2006

By 

Nat Troy (El Prado, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Search of Rhett Butler (Hardcover)

The first part of this wonderful book is a tale of coming of age

in the small-town-South. The story line and characterizations are good and the author's observations and metaphoric descriptions are keen and witty but not overdone. Tom Wolff massaged by Sue Grafton. The rest of the book is memoir-like, with the early characters continuing to devlop as the later charaters come aboard, adding breadth to the story without confusing it. We are drawn into their lives with extremely intelligent but very readable prose. As with GWTW, the reader is left wanting more.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I can't recommend this book, February 28, 2009

By 

L. Boulton (Redmond, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: In Search of Rhett Butler (Paperback)

This book was highly recommended by a couple of other people. I suspect that they were friends or relatives of the author. Aside from the fact that it's hard for me to imagine that this is one of the best books anyone has ever read, some of these reviewers have not reviewed *any* other books.

One thing to be aware of is that this book was published by iUniverse [...], which is a "self publishing company." Normally I try to avoid such books, but in this case I decided to give the book a chance. After all, other reviewers had rated it highly. I realized very early on that it was an amateurish effort, but told myself that the story might still be worthwhile. I was disappointed.

The writing style was a bit awkward. One example is the sentence "Scarlett, in her blood-red velvet suit, the one Tessa insisted she have in spite of Scarlett's protests, looked down at her small blonde mother, standing a head shorter than herself, and understated in her new wool wedding suit the shade of pink satin toe shoes." The dialogue is often either stilted and/or melodramatic.

The timeline is also very confusing. While we are told what date many segments begin on, we often suddenly find a reference to something that evidently happened months or years previously that wasn't mentioned, and then the author will go back and fill in the details. It isn't clear why these events aren't just related sequentially.

These things are distracting, but they could have been overlooked if the characters had been well developed. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The characters were not convincing, and their behavior was often inconsistent or even unbelievable.

I did give this book a 2 instead of a 1 just because it could have been worse. I did think that the author was trying to deliver more than a formula story, and to share her insights. However, I cannot recommend the book. At the very least, it needs a lot of editing.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A real dog, April 21, 2008

By 

BGRT "Knowledge is Power" (Phoenix, AZ USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: In Search of Rhett Butler (Paperback)

I just couldn't make it through this one. Terrible story, poor writing (no imagination) on the author's part. I loved "Gone With the Wind", "Scar;ett" was just OK, "Rhett's People" so-so. This one is trading on GWTW names only. Save your $