Book Review - Dollar Daze by Karin Gillespie

Amazon UK

Title: Dollar Daze

Author: Karin Gillespie

Format reviewed: Ebook

Source: Netgalley

Publisher: Henery Press

Publication Date: 12th May 2015

Rating: 3 Stars

Cupid is running rampant in Cayboo Creek, South Carolina, and all the Bottom Dollar Girls have been struck dizzy with his arrows…

When high school heartthrob Brewster Clark returns to town, both Birdie and Mavis are angling for his affections, threatening their long-term friendship.

Ever-so-proper Gracie Tobias meets Rusty the dreamy doctor of her dreams but soon discovers he’s actually a blue-collar duct doctor. Will their wildly different social positions drive a wedge between them? Meanwhile Elizabeth is trying to put the sizzle back to her marriage. Not even octogenarian Attalee is immune to love’s siren call. She gets engaged to beau Dooley and plans a wild bachelorette party and steamy honeymoon.

Traveling love’s rocky road keeps the Bottom Dollar Girls asking, “Is it ever too late for moons and Junes?” Through much laughter and a few tears the girls discover that the answer is a resounding no.

Related subjects include: book club recommendations, women’s friendship and sisterhood, chick lit romantic comedy, chick lit books, funny romance, Southern humor, women’s fiction, Southern fiction.

Dollar Daze is a book featuring the lives of the girls who work, or have worked in Bottom Dollar shop in Cayboo Creek, South Carolina. 

There is Mavis who is hoping she isn't too old to have a new beau in her life. She and best friend Birdie both have their eyes set on Brewster Clark, who has returned to town. But can their friendship survive?

There is also Attalee who is the soda jerk at the store, and is madly in love with her fiancee Dooley. Attalee is in her eighties, but a lot of the time acts and sounds a lot younger. Definitely young at heart, and is the life and soul of her sections of the book. 

Mrs Tobias (Gracie), meets and starts to have feelings for Rusty, but they are from different social positions. They are both older people, and Rusty introduces her to far more of life than her husband ever did when he was alive. Rusty brings a  levity into Mrs Tobias's life. 

Then there is the story that I was most interested in, perhaps because of my age, I wasn't really connecting properly with all the older characters, but Timothy and Elizabeth I cared about. Elizabeth is a mum to baby Glenda. She is finding motherhood tougher than she was expecting and wants to go back to work. Timothy is opposed to this, and also wants a whole bevy of children.

Dollar Daze was the third book in the Bottom Dollar series. I haven't read the other books, and not sure if that's the reason I wasn't fully invested in the stories of the assorted characters. 

The story chops and changes a lot between the various storylines, but its all easy to follow and there is a lovely older Southern American turn of phrase used, and I could hear the characters out loud in my head with their accents. 

I found overall Dollar Daze to be an easy read, with some gentle romance and humour thrown in.