Miss Hildreth Wore Brown—Anecdotes of a Southern Belle

SYNOPSIS
With storytelling written in the finest Southern tradition from the soap operas of Chandler Street in the quaint town of Gainesville, Georgia, to a country store on the Alabama state line, Olivia deBelle Byrd delves with wit and amusement into the world of the Deep South with all its unique idiosyncrasies and colloquialisms.

The characters who dance across the pages range from Great-Aunt Lottie Mae, who is as “old-fashioned and opinionated as the day is long,” to Mrs. Brewton, who calls everyone “dahling” whether they are darling or not, to Isabella with her penchant for mint juleps and drama.

Humorous anecdotes from a Christmas coffee, where one can converse with a lady who has Christmas trees with blinking lights dangling from her ears, to Sunday church, where a mink coat is mistaken for possum, will delight Southerners and baffle many a non-Southerner. There is the proverbial Southern beauty pageant, where even a six-month-old can win a tiara, to a funeral faux pas of the iron clad Southern rule—one never wears white after Labor Day and, dear gussy, most certainly not to a funeral.

Miss Hildreth Wore Brown—Anecdotes of a Southern Belle is guaranteed to provide an afternoon of laugh-out-loud reading and hilarious enjoyment.

REVIEW
As many of my blogging friends know while I no longer live in the South I am a born and bred Southern girl. When I was contacted by the author of Miss Hildreth Wore Brown to see if I was interested in doing a review I jumped at the chance.

I read the book on a Sunday afternoon. Every time my husband walked into the room I was laughing out loud and he kept asking what was so funny. I would read the section to him and he either started laughing or shook his head and walked away (his exit from the room was marked by a low laugh).

You know how it is when you are chatting with a good friend over coffee. You talk about family, friends and acquaintances. Reading Miss Hildreth Wore Brown (you will discover the meaning of the title on the first page) is very much the same. The laughs are many but there are also words of wisdom and a touching moment....or two.

Miss Olivia, I do declare, you and I must have had some of the same relatives! The names may be different but the descriptions are almost identical. Your Mama Ruby could easily have been my Mama Minnie.

My favorite quote from the book:
"I can only assume that in other parts of the country people do not ride a full grown horse through the living room at their little soirees, converse with the dead on elevators, or have nonagenarians serving in the Marines. I have to believe it is the kind of occurrences that only happen in the South. But, honestly, I ponder these things. I surely do."

Am I recommending this book? You bet I am! If you are Southern you will love it! If you are not Southern you will love it! Buy it now! You can purchase Miss Hildreth Wore Brown on the author's website HERE or at Amazon.com HERE. Don't wait!

If you would like to read an excerpt check out POSSUM QUEEN.

And now dear readers, I would like to share a guest post from author Olivia deBelle Byrd.

AN ACCIDENTAL AUTHOR

It began as a mundane task of cleaning out my filing cabinet. I happened upon a humorous anecdote I had written when my son was sixteen years old. He had asked me a question pertaining to sex that had struck me as funny. Since we Southerners have a penchant for turning ordinary happenings into entertainment, I had written an anecdote about it. My husband and daughter were sitting in the room so I read this anecdote to them and they looked at me with their mouths agape and said, “Honey/Mom, that is really funny!” The truth is they were amazed I could write something other then thank you notes.

A few days later, I was telling one of my oft repeated stories and my husband said to me in exasperation, “Why don’t you write this stuff down?” The Scarlett O’Hara in me, who loves nothing more than a good challenge, surfaced and these two occurrences spurred me to action. Why not write some of these tales down for my children as a Christmas gift? I had a quest.

Since I had been raised by a Southern father and grandmother of uncommon wit, the fabric of my childhood was laced with humor. When I finally put pen to paper, the stories flowed as freely as water drops on a rainy day. The tales would surface in the quiet of church, where it seems much of my book was written on the back of offering envelopes. It would probably be best if my preacher never discovered this little fact. One day I was thirty minutes late picking my daughter up from the airport, where she was perched on her suitcase, hands in face. I had pulled over to the side of the road to write. When I surfaced from this rain storm of writing, I realized I had actually written a book!

With the encouragement and mentoring of two wonderful Southern authors, I began the arduous journey into the world of manuscripts and rejection letters. I had armed myself by reading everything I could on publishing and growing a thick skin, but the rejection letters were growing faster than my skin. Then, miraculously, thirty-one months and fourteen rejection letters later, Miss Hildreth Wore Brown-Anecdotes of a Southern Belle was published by an independent New York publisher.

Lives have many forks in the road, but this was a U-turn in mine. The world of marketing a book has taken me down many new paths. My readers have made the lost sleep, uncertainty, and long hours worth it all. I have made new friends and renewed old friendships. I have found family I never knew existed. Every time a reader tells me they laughed at my words, my soul smiles. I have been in love with the written word as long as I can remember and to use it to bring pleasure to others is the greatest pleasure of all.

Olivia deBelle Byrd is a self-proclaimed Southern Belle who resides in Panama City, Florida, with her husband, Tommy. She is the author of Miss Hildreth Wore Brown—Anecdotes of a Southern Belle, which is her first collection of satirical essays.
www.oliviadebellebyrd.com













I was not compensated for this review. I received a copy of the book from the author, all opinions are my own.