Reviewer: Amy Lignor
Title: Splitting Harriet
Author: Tamara Leigh
Publisher: Multnomah Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-59052-928-7
Release Date: December 2007
Genre/Sub-genre: Chick-Lit/Contemporary
Year/Setting: Present Day
Overall Rating: 2.5
Sexual Content Rating: Subtle
Language (Profanity/Slang) Content Rating: None/Mild
Violent Content Rating: Minimal
Tamara's Website:
www.tamaraleigh.com
Harriet is a preacher’s daughter in "Smalltown USA". She’s lived as a rebel most of her life. In the very first scenes, as a matter of fact, we are introduced to the darker side of Harriet. At a bar, drunk as a skunk, Harriet is dancing with one of "those" guys that your mother always warned you about. I know, you’ve heard it all before. But who comes in and saves her? Two old ladies from the congregation of her father’s church. These characters are adorable, by the way. (Being from a small town myself, the church ladies were always the characters in life that you never forget.)
Anyway, in Harriet’s spare time she works at Gloria’s Morning Café which she is trying to buy someday for her very own. But most of her focus is aimed at the church. The once partying wild child, whose father is now gone, does not agree with the new ministry that has taken over. Pastor Paul is a good man but wants to change things in the church that Harriet’s father loved so much. He wants to modernize in order to get the ‘flock’s’ numbers to rise. He wants to (gasp) take out the old organ that has served the church for years and update it with new, hip instruments. Worst of all, he brings in a church consultant named Maddox McCray to help him raise the numbers of his congregation and bring it into the 21st century.
Maddox McCray, as you already suspect, is a reformed (maybe) ‘bad boy.’ Not only does Harriet dislike him for changing her father’s church, but he always seems to show up in her life at the most inopportune times – such as when she is overdosing on Jelly Belly jelly beans and they’re stuck in her hair, covering the floor of her house, etc.
The relationship that ensues is light-hearted and funny. Think Bridget Jones’ Diary but without, unfortunately, Colin Firth, to hold your attention. Ms. Leigh’s first book Perfecting Kate, was a big winner with me. The characters and storyline were extremely interesting and I really fell in love with Kate and all her little "traumas." Splitting Harriet, although well-written, just didn’t have the sarcastic edge that was so prevalent in the last book.
But, if you love warm writing or Chick-Lit fiction, you will certainly enjoy Ms. Leigh’s work.
Amy
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