BW28: Southern Fiction and my roots

 It's book week 28 in our 52 books quest and it's all about southern fiction.

I was born and raised in the south before we headed out to wild and wacky California. But my roots will always remain in Texas where I was born, then Alabama to Georgia during my formative high school and college years.   Yes, I was one of those who used to call everybody hon or sweetie or darlin. And dropped the g's on all words ending in ing. I had to work hard to lose the accent once we landed in California, however my southern accent still creeps back in when I'm tired or I hear someone speaking with a drawl.  But Y'ALL has stuck with me ever since.  And I bet y'all are wondering why I'm telling you this. Why our next 52 Books Bingo category, of course! 

I have Fannie Flag's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Café on the nightstand for my southern fiction read. 

I thought I had read the whole Armand Gamache series previously but I guess I was wrong.  Started with A Brutal Telling way back in 2009, jumped back to book one, then bounced around over the years.  Enjoying binging the series, reading each one, learning more about each character, as well as discovering who the murderer is in each one. Happily books one through five are on Kindle Unlimited and I have the rest in my stacks. Just finished Bury Your Dead which broke my heart several times, but the fascinating history lead me to look up info on Quebec and Champlain which provided some relief from the emotional impact of Armand reliving the shoot out and his conversations with Morin.  

Recently finished Emily Henry's Beach Reads which was excellent and about two authors emotional struggle to get past their grief of destroyed relationships while writing their novels.

 "Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.  

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.  Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really."