Jim and Louella's Homemade Heartfix Remedy

Actually 4.5 stars. I am a white male, and I am part of a black book discussion group, here, near DC. I must really admit that I liked this book. I laughed, I cried, I was struck with awe. I salute Bertice Berry. She is very creative, and seems to really have found her niche in life. I salute her ability to indeed make profound thoughts belong to the experience of common people. For me the book dragged a little in the middle, but without a spy-like plot, you have to make allowances. I am not one for magic or fantasy in a book (or movie). However, the powers of Jim and Louella Johnson were not self-serving, but ministerial in nature. The book is incarnational, the divine touching the human, all for the purpose of healing and salvation. Though no one would call it a religious story, it is. You don't buy this work for bawdy, knock-down, steamy, Zane-like sex. You buy it if you want to change your life. This is my first whack at the fruit of Bertice Berry. I wish that she would point out to me a follow-up of hers just as good. [email protected]

Sometimes we don't recognize that the wisdom of our elders --- living or dead ---often holds the answers to our biggest problems.Louella Parsons had certainly forgotten this, but very early on in JIM AND LOUELLA'S HOMEMADE HEART-FIX REMEDY, Louella is reminded. In an enchanting and enchanted dream, Louella is visited by her grandmother, her mother and her aunt, all voices of tried and true, down-home, country wisdom, tweaked with a dash of surprising spice. Louella explains to her predecessors her simple, familiar plight: married for twenty-six years to Jim, they have become complacent and their romance routine. Her female ancestors give her very powerful advice, promising her rejuvenation of body and soul if she can adhere to the basic rules they lay before her.To put the spark back in the bedroom --- and, actually, every room in the house! ---they must spend three days limiting their sexual activities as dictated by Louella's long-dead kin. While taking advice from the dead and buried may seem bizarre, in REMEDY it's absolutely charming-and successful!Written in a folksy, comforting and accessible style, the advice to Jim and Louella goes something like this --- on day one, they can talk about intimacy, but they cannot act. On the second day, they can touch, but they cannot taste. On the final day they are limited to tasting, but nothing else. These scenes are tantalizing, teasing, and enough to jumpstart anyone's libido. Berry builds a loving, sexual tension of great power, until, finally, on the fourth day, Louella and Jim can't keep their hands off each other.But they don't just recapture their love life-they reinvent it. The pleasures of the body seem to open up their minds, too, and they find themselves possessed of new powers of intuition and able to read the very thoughts of those around them.A journey of healing and revelation begins for the entire town as the news of their special "heart-fixing" capabilities spread. And soon lines are forming outside their house-people come seeking help with their love lives, or long-standing familial battles, and even deep horrifying, unthinkable secrets and problems. Berry tells us so many wonderful stories about the townsfolk --- the librarian, the heavy girl, the crossing guard, the bookstore owners; each tale is a gem in itself.Berry's rich characters tug at our heartstrings and make us laugh at the same time. There's Mae, the town whore, who has never known love, but knows a bucketful about the so-called pious men who populate the church pews every Sunday morning. Then there's Jim and Louella's son Naim, an educated boy who often can't see beyond his books. And John, Jim's long-lost brother, who carries perhaps the biggest and most pertinent revelation for Jim and Louella.The wisdom of the ages, the true self, the nature of love --- these are just a few themes in REMEDY. --- Reviewed by Roberta O'Hara

Jim and Louella, a couple of fun-loving fifty-somethings, were in a rut. Their lovemaking wasn't what it used to be, and they were scared. After enlisting the help of her dead mother, grandmother and aunt via her dreams, Louella rekindled their romance and ignited something else far more powerful. Jim and Louella were able to hear people's thoughts, and used this gift to promote love and end internal turmoils. It seemed that the world could feel the love emanating from Jim and Louella, and many of their neighbors in their small Georgia town came to them for help with their own affairs. Berry has created a wonderful cast of characters in this novel. I kept hoping this book would never end. The writing is conversational in tone and powerful in content, as Louella proves that what the world DOES need now is love, sweet love.~ Reviewed by CandaceK

There are only a few things better than reading a book that is entertaining and has lessons to live by; this book was just that. Bertice Berry has simple, thought-provoking sayings throughout her book that take you back to the times spent down south on the porch listening to your elders, with their wisdom and all. She also reminds us in a funny and enjoyable way that our sex lives do not have to be routine or nonexistent because of age or familiarity with our spouse/mate.

I don't know how she does it, but Dr. Berry takes a story about ordinary people and try to teach us a lesson in the midst of it. I got this book yesterday, and I wish I could better describe it, but I will try. You have this middle age couple that was in a love rut, well the wife, Louella dreams up her dead female relatives one night, who tell her what to do in the love department, and chile, some of those love scenes in that book would probably rival some of Zane's stuff(which is racy)yet,to keep to the story, the couple gets out of the love rut, and come find out,they have the gift of knowing what is in people's minds, so much so, that they help, as well as frighten some of the townspeople into doing what is right.There were times that I had to put the book down and think on some of the things that was said because although it was fiction, it was if it was talking to me. At any rate, GET THIS BOOK!!!