Author Mindy Friddle’s new book, The Garden Angel, is just out in trade paperback from Picador. This book is being highly praised and is already a B&N Discover Great New Writers selection, a SEBA (Southeastern Bookseller’s Associations) bestseller, and a Pulpwood Queens Book Club Selection.

About Mindy’s book: In Sans Souci, South Carolina, talk is cheap, real estate even more so. No one knows this better than Cutter Johanson, a gruff tomboy who waits tables, writes obits, and makes every effort, however comical and in the face of her mercenary relatives, to avert the sale of the dilapidated ancestral home. And despite her plucky resolve, all appears to be lost—until she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Elizabeth, a shy and fragile academic who puts both their fates on the mend.

Some of the other praise Mindy has been getting:

“Mindy Friddle has a great comic touch, and her novel is a touching, heartfelt debut.”
-Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls

“Friddle has a way with the comic yet apt image…funny, down-to-earth and steeped in a sense of place.”
-The Washington Post

“The glory of a past that may never be reclaimed is the theme of this unique and satisfying novel …At times wonderfully comic and sad enough to provoke tears, The Garden Angel is an addictive read, and an enthralling story filled with both loss and hope.” — The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers

“The southern novel is still alive and kicking, thank heavens, and Friddle gives the genre its due…with comic grace. In the tradition of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Friddle’s novel celebrates the power of women’s friendship. The story is soulful and satisfying, as southern as a slice of watermelon on a hot summer’s day.”
-The Charlotte Observer

“A beguiling debut novel. Friddle…handles the juxtaposition of two highly eccentric cultures-small-town Southern society and small-college English department-with a light, quirky touch that keeps the story moving along and steadily entertaining.”
-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A comic delight….Winning characters and piquant wit, with an underpinning of graciousness: a standout.”
-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“This debut novel is atmospheric in the way of Southern fiction, but it’s also brand new. With casual skill, Friddle makes the case that who we like in life may be as critical as who we love.”
-Publishers Weekly

“[The] writing is as beautiful as a stained glass window….Like Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty, Friddle reveres the majesty of Southern homes and Southern women, zany or not.”
-The News & Record (Greensboro)

“Friddle has a great flair for comic relief, and in a novel filled with tragedy…there is also much laughter.”
-Oxford Town (Oxford, Mississippi)

“Bursting with local color and Southern warmth, the story…reflects a need to remember our history in the modern south.”
-Ya’ll magazine

“A whimsical tale about the transformative power of an unlikely friendship. Friddle’s lyrical novel is beautifully written in language both earthy and poetic. It is also extremely funny.”
-The Journal-Standard (Illinois)

“The hidden charm of this book is the eccentric minor players that move effectively throughout the story….THE GARDEN ANGEL continues in the tradition of other great Southern novelists with wit, charm, and the abundance of humanity.”
-Savannah Morning News

“Add Mindy Friddle to the list of contemporary Southern writers able to bring a town to life with her words…a confident debut from a Southern writer to watch.”
-Playback St. Louis

“Mindy Friddle’s first novel is the literary equivalent of Grace Kelly—smart and stylish, elegant and timeless, destined to become a classic.”
-Michael Lee West, author of Crazy Ladies

“Cutter Johanson is a heroine Eudora Welty would be proud to claim and one few readers will forget. The Garden Angel is a book I did not want to end.”
-Ron Rash, author of Saints at the River

“THE GARDEN ANGEL takes on the shifting alliances defined by family, love, and friendship with quirky grace and raucous wit. Mindy Friddle’s details are shocking and flawless. I’m thankful for her reminder that our frail souls can be ultimately triumphant.”
-Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk, The Miss America Family, and The Madam

“THE GARDEN ANGEL is smart, soulful, sensual, and hysterically funny. Mindy Friddle’s writing is as quirky and original as the South itself.”
-Valerie Ann Leff, author of Better Homes & Husbands

“Agoraphobes and adulterers, lovers of history and advocates for the future, the mentally ill and the putatively sane all line up to do battle in THE GARDEN ANGEL, a warm-hearted, funny novel about the vagaries of small-town life and the encroachments of the big, bad world.”
-Debra Spark, author of Coconuts for the Saint and The Ghost of Bridgetown and editor of Twenty Under Thirty: Best Stories by America’s New Young Writers

Here’s another one you WON’T want to miss. Mindy is a former newspaper reporter. She received the 2003 South Carolina Fiction Prize and a Fellowship in Fiction from the South Carolina Academy of Authors.

You can visit her Web site at www.mindyfriddle.com. And OF COURSE, she blogs. All the Girlfriends on the GCC blog. You can visit hers at http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/friddmi/.

As promised, I rented and watched Baptists at our Barbecue.

I was hoping for more. Frankly, it’s pretty stupid. They did invite the Baptists to the barbecue, but I never really understood why. I think it had something to do with world peace, but I could be wrong. But please don’t take offense at my dissing of this movie. It’s not because it’s a Mormon movie, although make no mistake, it IS a Mormon movie. It explained nothing about Baptist culture except the preacher had unruly eyebrows that REALLY needed to be trimmed. Do unruly eyebrows equal evil? Because if so, my dad needs an exorcism. The movie had its funny moments, but only if you are even remotely familiar with Mormon culture. I’m dissing it because it was stupid. Which is sad. I think this filmmaker has potential. Much of this film, while amateur, had a lot of potential. It just never quite gets there. (Please note: I am NO filmmaker. I do not pretend to be one. So all of this can be taken with a grain of salt, even the praise, faint though it may be.)

The leads were very charming. The premise very interesting. The director/writer/producer/whomever has a great sense of humor, and an ability to laugh at the culture without doing any heavy-handed preaching.

But the plot was thin–where it wasn’t threadbare. Many things went unexplained. Threads were dropped. Give me a break, I’m a writer, and I KNOW a dropped thread when I see one.

This ain’t no Richard Dutcher film. But then again, it never INTENDED to be. It is supposed to be a comedy for, well, Mormons, and I think the Mormons that made this movie were trying to send a message, however slight, about tolerance. But it was too slight to do anything except make one shake one’s head.

There were some damn funny bits in it, though. It would have been so cool had the whole film held up. The Saints in this town–which is supposed to be out of Utah, but which is so obviously shot in Utah, despite the fact they claim the main character moves OUT of Utah–are fighting a war with the Baptists for control. It’s about 50-50. (Please note: We do have Baptists, however, it is not 50-50. Pretty much ever. Some towns are not real Mormon, like Park City and Moab, and even Salt Lake City. Even then, not 50-50, Baptists and Mormons. In fact, there really is no PLACE where you can move and find you have 50 percent Mormons and 50 percent Baptists. Film director…have you been visiting my sister? If not, why Baptists? We have more problem with the Jehovah’s Witnesses here than Baptists. Oh well.) So, Utah doesn’t send them a lot of support. They rebel, and ask for a wardhouse, which they don’t have, and so Utah sends them a double-wide. Gives new meaning to the term trailer trash. And then someone steals half of it. So they have to shore it up with lovely hand-made quilts. Again, funny shit, at least if you are familiar with Utah and wards, and Mormons, and all of that.

The Nazi-Mormon Matron is funny. A lot of the actors are funny. The leads are charming. The script just didn’t deliver. Which, as I mentioned before, is sad. It had potential. And the screenwriter has potential. I would definitely give a film by this screenwriter/director another chance. (I’m too lazy to look up his name.)

I recently watched some clips from The RM, another Mormon-themed movie, a while back, and just those few clips had me laughing a lot more than this movie.

Even though it wasn’t a great movie, I think the writer/director has a good sense of humor about being Mormon, and an ability to laugh at the culture. If you can’t laugh, you cry, and it’s hard to see through tears.

Next up at Chez Collins: a review of The RM. Any minute now I’m going to be making a batch of green jello and heading to the wardhouse for homemaking. Not.

One of my sisters, aka one of the Little Girls (a family name for the two youngest females in our family of five children), recently left the loving and protective arms of Zion and traveled a ways south and definitely a ways out of her comfort zone.

She is now a resident of Savannah, Georgia, which, as I understand it, is pretty much the deep south. I’m checking with my resident Southern Belle friend Joshilyn Jackson, author of the BESTSELLING (shameless plug for her book) gods in Alabama, and if she disabuses me of this notion, I’ll return and report, but for all intents and purposes right now, LG#2 is in the Deep South.

She called me yesterday. Things are going great for her and her husband there, no matter how nervous they were to leave Utah behind. The only problem, it seems, is the Southern Baptists. “You’ve never seen anything like it, Nat,” she told me. “This one neighbor came over and told me my kids were going to hell because they were Mormon. They are trying to convert me. And the Southern Baptists run everything around here. They have their hands in everything. You just wouldn’t believe it. They even tell their kids not to play with kids who aren’t Baptist.”

Moment of silence here, whilst we all digest what my Mormon sister, formerly of Utah–home of the Saints, nothing but the Saints, so help me Joseph Smith–has just said. After a moment, I, of course, started laughing. “Gee, now you know what it feels like.”

“Natalie,” she scolded in the voice my family has always reserved for me. “I have been to a lot of wards, and they have never told us not to let our children play with others, or tell people they are going to hell because they’re not ’saved.’”

“Well, actually, LG#2, they do (I didn’t call her LG#2, but if I call her by her real name on my highly irreverant blog, she will return to Utah and shoot me. I’m sure she has a gun by now. I hear Southerners like their guns. Kinda like Utahns.). Mormonism is the ONLY TRUE RELIGION. Sound familiar? Hmmmmmmm? Only Mormons who have been through the temple go to the Celestial Kingdom? Heard that one? Hmmmmmm. The Mormons have been running EVERYTHING around here for years, and nobody bats an eyelash. The problem is when you get too many of any one group in any one place they really believe in that strength in numbers cliche.”

“Natalie,” she says, with a snort of disgust. I decided, at this point, to let her off the hook, because:

a) She admitted to me a few years back that she didn’t believe Mormonism was the only true religion. It’s more a cultural thing for her, than anything else.

b) She’s quite funny, and I enjoy her company, plus I would like to visit Georgia, and see these Southern Baptists in action for myself, and it would be nice to have a place to stay.

c) I think she did somewhat relate to the object lesson I was giving her, never mind the fact that it’s not at all my business to give her object lessons or point out life’s interesting little quirks. But she was the baby of the family. I got kind of used to it.

So, another of life’s little lessons, taught in an interesting and telling way. Even when one moves from one theocracy (where one belongs) into another (where one does not), moving is still not so earthshattering the blinders come completely off. I suspect that might take a tsunami.

Tomorrow, I shall explain Life’s Lesson No. 4,742: Cell phones that are dropped into toilet bowls, even CLEAN toilet bowls, cease to work. And yes, cell phones can fall into toilet bowls, and NO I was not talking into the phone using that end.

Tonight, in honor of the Southern Baptists, the film screening at Chez Collins is Baptists at our Barbecue, a small, independent film made by Mormons. Or so I presume. I shall return and report. (If you go to the link, you will see it is listed as Baptitsts at our Barbecue. Freudian Slip? Those evil sinners?)

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
I keep it, staying at Home –
With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
And an Orchard, for a Dome –

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
I just wear my Wings –
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton — sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at least –
I’m going, all along.

-Emily Dickenson

Today’s blog guest, courtesy of the Girlfriend’s Cyber Circuit, is Shanna Swendson, author of ENCHANTED, INC.

Shanna’s recently released book is getting great buzz and already got some great blurbs, like the ones below.

“A totally captivating, hilarious and clever look on the magical kingdom of Manhattan, where kissing frogs has never been this fun.”
–Melissa de la Cruz, author of The Au Pairs and The Fashionista Files

“With its clever premise and utterly engaging heroine, Shanna Swendson has penned a real treat! Enchanted, Inc. is loads of fun!”
–Julie Kenner, author of Carpe Demon and The Givenchy Code

“I am giddy! I found an enchanting (pardon the reference) book and therefore, have a new author to read. Š Bridget Jones, move over. Shanna Swendson is offering up fantasy for the Buffy, Sabrina and Bewitched crowd. This is a delightful romp through the world of magic with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure. There are characters you’ll love and remember. …If you want to escape the stress and busyness of life, join Katie for an enjoyable frolic into the world of make believe.”
–armchairinterviews.com

“ENCHANTED, INC. takes you into an alternate world where magic lives among us everyday. This is the kind of world we’ve all wanted to live in since the first time we saw Samantha twitch her nose. Ms. Swendson does a marvelous job of bridging our world with the world of fantasy, in such a way as to be completely plausible… This book, if you’ll pardon the pun, enchanted me from the first page.”
–Romance Junkies

“… lots of likeable characters (and potential romantic interests) that leave you wanting more.”
–Carolyn Cushman, Locus

Shanna Swendson’s debut mainstream novel, ENCHANTED, INC (Ballantine Trade Paperback Original, $12.95, May 31, 2005) is a magical story featuring Katie Chandler, a 20-something, small-town Texas girl, who finds that being average in New York City is anything but. Katie loves the energy of Manhattan, and if she finds some of the people odd, well, that’s New York, right? Where else would you see a person on the subway wearing fairy wings? In fact, if Katie wasn’t completely sure those wings must be a costume, she’d think they were real, the way they flutter in the breeze. Certainly the gargoyle that perches above the door of the church she passes on the way to and from work isn’t real. Its eyes seem to follow her, and she could have sworn it winked at her once, but now that she thinks about it, it was really hot that day, and she hadn’t eaten lunch….

Katie is still adjusting to life in the big city while working a for a nightmare boss, when she gets a fantastic offer to work for a mysterious company, MSI, Inc. Through her new job and the magical folk she meets, Katie comes to find out she isn’t quite as average as she thought; and the fairy tale life she has longed for begins to come true in surprising ways.

What Katie doesn’t realize is how rare and important being ordinary can be. In fact, it is her ordinary characteristics that make her the perfect secret weapon for MSI, Inc. Suddenly the very qualities she thought made her average are what make her special! Now she has magicians and fairies meddling in her attempted romances, a secret life she needs to keep hidden from her non-magical friends, not to mention that dangerous pull she feels for Owen, an attractive but shy wizard who might be the most powerful magic man since Merlin.

ENCHANTED, INC is a magical delight that will be a fun summer read for anyone who’s wished upon a star or hoped for a sprinkle of fairy dust.

O O O O O

About the Author
With ENCHANTED, INC. Shanna Swendson offers a new twist on chick lit for the-now- grown-up fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In addition to writing fiction, Shanna is a freelance marketing consultant and writer specializing in technology and telecommunications. She is single and lives in Irving, Texas, with her many pet plants, including a vicious attack bougainvillea and a Christmas cactus that has outlasted three homes, three jobs and three boyfriends, yet still faithfully blooms every Christmas and Easter. She’s looking for a man that reliable.

Enchanted, Inc
Shanna Swendson
A Ballantine Trade Paperback Original
ISBN: 0-345-48125-9; $12.95
May 31, 2005
www.ballantinebooks.com
www.shannaswendson.com

Check out Shanna’s book, and let me know what you think.