High Cotton

High Cotton

by Debby Mayne  Southern Fiction Gilead Publishing  Bucklin Family Reunion series: Book 1 Some families are filled with so much love they can't help but drive each other crazy. Shay Henke has mixed feelings about going to her family's next reunion. On the one hand, she'll get to see everyone in her mama's family---folks she loves unconditionally. On the other hand, she knows there'll be more drama than you can shake a stick at. The days leading up to the event bring one surprise after another. First Shay must deal with her sister-in-law's deep, dark secret. Then she has to contend with the childish ways of her business-mogul twin cousins. And when her high school crush wants to be her date to the reunion . . . well, it may have been a dream come true for Shay's teen self, but the woman she's become doesn't know what to make of this. Shay's contentment is challenged, and she's determined to shake things up a bit. But will she find the excitement she's looking for, or will Shay realize she prefers her quiet and predictable life?  One thing is certain: Life with the Bucklin family is never boring.   My thoughts: HIGH COTTON is southern women's fiction, a whole different culture than say women's fiction set in the north.  It's about a family, four different women, Shay, Puddin', Sally, and Missy, and the upcoming family reunion and why they don't all want to go (oh, the drama) and why they feel obligated to go, and all their deeply held secrets that they don't want everyone to know as well as those they want to use to impress everyone.  This is written in first person, with each character having their own chapter. It is sort of chick-litty but without the sarcasm.  It is very definitely women's fiction (the back cover says romance, but romance is not the focus). The mainest main character is Shay. She has the most  points of view and she is also the one the blurb on the back cover of the book is about.  She has her own drama, plus family drama, and then she accidentally becomes privy to her sister-in-law Puddin's big dark secret, adding even more drama.   I was a bit confused at first with all the first person main characters (who is Missy and how is she related to Shay again?) so it took awhile for me to get each character straight in my head and to remember what individual drama each character is dealing with. I think I would've enjoyed it more if she would have picked one character and stuck with her, and maybe used the other three as secondary characters, but for whatever reason that is not the way it was written. It does give us inside thoughts on the four different women and the big five questions: why, what, where, when and how...  Ms. Mayne is a stellar writer and if you like southern fiction, women's fiction, chicklit (minus sarcasm) and family drama you will love HIGH COTTON. This is the first book in her new series, Bucklin Family Reunion (and the series title says it all).  I absolutely adore the cover.  I was given a copy free and all opinions are my own.

Meet the Author

Debby Mayne writes family and faith-based romances, cozy mysteries, and women's fiction and is the author of more than 60 novels and novellas-plus more than 1,000 short stories, articles, and devotions for busy women. Debby is currently an etiquette writer for The Spruce.  Debby grew up in a military family, which meant moving every few years throughout her childhood. She was born in Alaska, and she has lived in Mississippi, Tennessee, Oregon, Florida, South Carolina, Hawaii, and Japan. Her parents were both from the Deep South, so Debby enjoys featuring characters with Southern drawls, plenty of down-home cooking, and folks with quirky mannerisms. High Cotton is the first book in the Bucklin Family Reunion series.