A Dollar Short: The Bottom Dollar Girls Go Hollywood

Who wouldn't love these books? Full of hilarious moments, you will read it one sitting. We have two sisters who haven't had the best relationship. When Chiffon wins a trip to Hollywood, she has purchased a new Kmart outfit, all ready to go. At the last minute, her youngest has a fever, and so she tells her husband to go ahead. Her husband Lonnie hasn't always treated her right, cheating on her and taking advantage of her. She finds out from the TV of all places that her husband is shacking up with Jay-Li. The media gets ahold of this story and has a field day with it. Chenille, Chiffon's sister, has never married and is a school teacher. Her teaching assistant thinks she has the green light to help discipline the children, wields a plastic machete, to scare the children. Chenille has been let go from her job because the assistant said she told her to do whatever was necessary to keep the children in line. Well Chiffon is stuck with her and Lonnie's three children, and has an accident in the grocery store after seeing tabloids with Lonnie and Jay-Li all over, spraining her ankle. Their mother is going to Europe and asks Chenille to assist Chiffon. Together they tackle the world, each ending up a little richer in love and life. I can't wait for the next one to come out.

I adored A Dollar Short and its lovable heroine, Chiffon Butrell! It is a hilarious southern romp, and once you start reading it, you will not be able to put it down until the very last page.

I love the kooky girls in this series and this one adds Chiffon's sister, Chenille. Chenille comes to town toting her terrier, Walter and causes quite a stir. I can't wait to see what happens in the next book!

This series just keeps getting better. Is it any wonder James Woods (yes, the actor) has optioned the movie rights for the first book (Bet Your Bottom Dollar)? He needs to option this one, too. It's hysterical! The opening line's a killer: It isn't every day a movie star steals your husband. What woman can't identify with that? And if you love your husband, what would you do? Chiffon Butrell knows what she won't do: give philandering husband Lonnie a divorce so he can marry J-Li (short for Janie Lynn Lauren), Hollywood's hottest starlet, opting instead to put on her blinders and dig in her heals. Which is fine if you watch where you're going, but Chiffon's watching the tabloids which have husband Lonnie and his new love jet setting the globe while Chiffon's stuck in Cayboo Creek, SC. trying to save face and feed her and Lonnie's three kids. Chiffon trips over Wesson oil and ends up losing her waitress job along with her husband. Her twin sister Chenille (her Zoloft-taking-neurotic little dog Walter clutched in her arms), comes to the rescue. The sisters have as much in common as vinegar and oil, but are soon united in their efforts to ward off the press, preserve Chiffon's by now sullied reputation, and provide for the children's well-being during the mudslinging, Star and National Enquirer-style. The journey to reunite them is fraught with enough laughs to keep you reading long into the night and loaded with enough heart that you won't be sorry you did. The story, teaming with pure southern charm, is grit-lit at its finest, the payoff as scrumptious as pecan pie. Serve yourself up a slice. It'll leave you hungry for more.

In Cayboo Creek, South Carolina, Wagon Wheel waitress Chiffon Butrell wins a video store's Be-a-Movie-Star contest, but cannot go to Hollywood because her baby is ill. Instead her handsome husband Lonnie heads west where he meets actress Janie-Lynn Lauren and forgets his wife and three kids back home. Chiffon loses her job and she cannot pay her bills because Lonnie has had his paycheck sent to California. Her friends want to help, but they are distracted with other matters. Elizabeth is about to give birth and the remaining Bottom Dollar Girls sisterhood are busy raising money for the Cayboo Creek Senior Center. Chiffon turns to her estranged sister Chenille to help her with her crisis accentuated by the media descending on Cayboo Creek like vultures seeking dirt on Lonnie. The sequel to the BOTTOM DOLLAR GIRLS, A DOLLAR SHORT is a fine look at modern life in a small rural southern community invaded by the outside world. The story line is amusing as the Bottom Dollar sisterhood goes about protecting their own, but also serious with the serious subplot of Lonnie abandoning his children besides his wife. Readers will appreciate this regional slice of life tale especially when the barbarian horde assaults the townsfolk who treat the outsiders like parasites that need special handling. This is one contemporary that is not A DOLLAR SHORT of fun. Harriet Klausner