What Matters in Mayhew

Amazon says I must disclose I’m a friend of the author. Well, let me tell you, after reading What Matters in Mayhey, I’m right proud to boast that I know Cassie Selleck. This is one brave story—funny, charming, engrossing, and courageous. Cassie knows small-town Florida, small-town America and she isn't afraid to portray it in all its dangerous, foolish, funny charm. She paints her characters' ugliness with grace and humor. And she joins their stories into a compelling plot that ties the reader in knots impatient to learn how/if they’ll be able to solve their interwoven problems. Fictional Mayhew on the Suwannee River in Florida is populated by a cast of characters as diverse as can be fit in 277 pages. Without hiding a character's villainy behind cute clichés, Selleck is able to evoke understanding, even sympathy for the most hateful. Typical is the woman whose racism is so deeply ingrained, her inability to examine what drives her so total that she doesn’t know how to apologize even when she intends to. Yet, while despising her ignorance, we hope she'll learn and change. And Mayhew heroes have flaws we want to fix for them. Selleck portrays them in all their beauty and power, tempered with fear and pride. My favorite character in What Matters in Mayhew is Bitty Atwater, a seven-year-old with an obsessive need to put everything—from her chaotic family to cookie cutters--in order. Selleck promises a series of Mayhew stories. I’m looking forward to all of them, but I'm especially hoping for a book ten where Bitty is flying off to begin her freshman year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in big data analysis. Maybe she’ll be able to make sense of all the problems plaguing her Mayhew neighbors.

There was a lot of jumping around with the story being told by different characters' perspective. I don't have a problem with that except it took away from the main story of the health of one of the main characters. Ms. Selleck is quite good at involving the reader in the lives of her characters. She just needs to focus on the characters and avoid scattering telling the story by different people. A good book!

I love this author! She develops characters that are quickly friends. I could not put this book down and can’t wait to get the sequel to see where life takes the residents of Mayhew!

A Southern gem full of wonderful and flawed people who make you laugh, cry and want to pinch them. Good story

I wanted to like this book as much as I did "The Pecan Man," but this one is lacking. The author relies so heavily on making and keeping the characters colorful, she lets the story slide. I've been "reading" this for three weeks and am only halfway through. In the meantime I've read four other books -- all the way through. As a Composition teacher and author to another author, I'd like to suggest Ms Selleck to give Beanie some grit -- something the reader can hang onto. Petticoats only go so far before they get old and boring. Give us people who are more than cliches, and situations that we can somehow relate to on a personal level. This is a perfectly good read if you just want to pass time in a waiting room or in the middle of the night, but it just isn't up to what the author is capable of creating. "The Pecan Man" was so strong, I know the author could have delivered more.

Charming, real life characters. Another winner from Ms. Selleck! Can't wait for the next book in this new series. Great beach read!

A fun read. Lots of interesting character's, happiness and love pre vials throughout. Some drama, but handled extremely well by the author's talent for story telling. You'll enjoy meeting all the town people a d hearing all the gossip. I highly recommend this book if you enjoy a good story that takes your mind off all your worries all the times you are reading it ..

In her second novel, Cassie Selleck lovingly but realistically brings to life a small town in Central Florida. To keep a tenuous peace, the residents of Mayhew Junction, both black and white, abide by long-established rituals" where to sit in the local cafe and who not to fall in love with. However, when Beanie Bradsher and Sweet Lee Atwater's husband share his lottery win and a whopping secret, tongues wag and gossip threatens to unhinge the townsfolk and undo a marriage. Selleck is every bit as deft at making her characters pop off the page as was Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel "The Yearliing". What Matters in Mayhew is a timely remiinder that America remains a patchwork quilt of many hews and textures, and Selleck's small town reflects a full spectrum of human experience and attitudes. She reminds us that What Matters in Mayhew still matters in rural communities all across America. A meaningful journey and a great read.

Was rather boring monologue. Not as good as her other books.