Southern Fiction Humor

"When Poppy Wainwright's grandmother dies, she travels from her home in Arkansas to live with her grandmother's older sister, Sookie, in Savannah, Georgia. 'Your Grandma Lainey was a self-righteous nit-wit,' Sookie tells Poppy upon their first meeting, 'and if I had the gumption, I'd drive myself up to Mountain Home and spit on her freshly dug grave.' Sookie is everything Poppy's grandmother was not: atheistic, slovenly, suspicious, prone to vendettas, and completely lacking any verbal filter." (Kirkus Reviews)

From the author of Lovejoy and Blessed comes a series about church ladies of the South. After reading this first novel in the series, fans of Southern fiction write, "I want to live next door to Mildred Budge." A retired school teacher, Mildred Budge just wants to live a quiet life in her hometown of Cloverdale. But retirement does not mean she can say no to a friend--not a friend in trouble. Mildred Budge knows how. A disciplined woman, Mildred can breathe the word "no" to a second cup of ice cream. Can resist drinking too much champagne. But when it comes right down to a friend needing a ...

Nevada Barr's award-winning mystery series captivates fans with vividly drawn wilderness settings and the resourceful sleuth, middle-aged park ranger Anna Pigeon. Deep South portrays Anna boldly confronting hostile teenagers, suspicious locals, and a resentful "old-boy" network as she struggles to solve a gruesome murder. Anna leaves behind her beloved Mesa Verde to take on a position as district park ranger of the Mississippi Natchez Trace Parkway.

An Atlanta ex-cop comes to Lake Sackett, Georgia, seeking peace and quiet - but he hasn’t bargained on falling for Frankie, the cutest coroner he’s ever met. Frankie McCready talks to dead people. Not like a ghost whisperer or anything - but it seems rude to embalm them and not say hello. Fortunately, at the McCready Family Funeral Home & Bait Shop, Frankie’s eccentricities fit right in. Lake Sackett’s embalmer and county coroner, Frankie’s goth styling and passion for nerd culture mean she’s not your typical Southern girl, but the McCreadys are hardly your typical Southern family.

What do church ladies really think? Composed and often so quiet as to be thought invisible, church ladies have secret powers to change the world. What are those special powers? They love well. They give well. They can often cook! And they play an essential role in a great rescue operation for mankind. For although they appear to have Ninja warrior strengths (and can be invisible!), they are helpers to the only Superhero who ever really saved the world and mankind. They know His name and will tell you. And they can show you what it's like to brought to life and empowered to love instead of ...

When the car sailed over the embankment carrying the four members of the pulpit committee, Mildred Budge called out, “Jesus saves.” The others heard it, but they were also experiencing their own quick flashes of insight. Liz, a serial widow, felt unsatisfied with her life. She wanted more. Sailing toward her death, she still did. Sam, who had turned the steering wheel that had sent them over the embankment, was looking forward to the crash. He wanted to feel it—the hard slam of collision. His hands held the wheel tightly, bracing for it. Jake smiled. He resisted holding Mildred’s ...

Janet Williams is practically invisible. If only she had the pluck to speak up at work, flirt with the handsome barista she sees every day, and realize how special she is. When a magical wig offers Janet a chance to shake things up, will she dare to try a bold new style? The voice in her head - flashy and fierce, with an unbridled southern drawl - tells her to go for it. And once she does, there’s no turning back.

Sam and Valerie Owens, owners of the Banty Hen Antique Shop, find themselves entangled in a murder investigation after being the last ones to see the victim alive. Valerie’s new venture, the Sweet Tea Quilting Bee is comprised of an eclectic mix of women and their weekly meetings help keep Valerie’s mind off the murder, but it’s hard to keep concealed from the ladies that the victim was killed over, of all things, an antique quilt! The murder suspect has been described as tall and thin, a vague description, but Police Chief Jess Hamilton and his new detective, a self-described Columbo...

"Arrested for what?" It’s been ages since the Stone Sisters have gone away together for a vacation, and all three are in desperate need of a road trip. When Maude Cooper reads about Graceland finally opening up to the public, she knows that is an event they must be at. Ruby Montgomery is exhausted. Between raising her toddler granddaughter and worrying about her wayward daughter across the country, she barely has any time for herself. When Maude proposes a spur of the moment trip to Memphis, Ruby is initially hesitant to go. Opal Tyler is on the cusp of fulfilling her lifelong dream of ...

Agatha O’Malley has become a recluse in the home that should be holding warm and wonderful memories. Up until her husband’s death, she led a happy and social life as the wife of a wealthy physician in the small town of Park Place, South Carolina. But now that he’s dead, she’s not only grieving for him, she’s furious with him over the mysterious disappearance of the stocks, bonds and money he told her he’d put aside for their retirement. What is she to do when there’s barely enough money in their joint checking account to survive, and how will she pay property taxes and keep up...

On the Ides of March, our hero, Raleigh Whittier Hayes (forgetful husband, baffled father, prosperous insurance agent, and leading citizen of Thermopylae, North Carolina), learns that his father has discharged himself from the hospital, taken all his money out of the bank and, with a young Black female mental patient, vanished in a yellow Cadillac convertible. Left behind is a mysterious list of seven outrageous tasks that Raleigh must perform in order to rescue his father and his inheritance.

Series is finished! Your favorite bartender is jetting off to Louisiana for the holidays! This time the mysterious shenanigans don’t involve high heels and handsome hunks. Try a gator, a grouchy granny, and a fortune in GOLD! Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and Vicki Bohanan is more than ready for whatever mysteries await. Between her confusing dating life and a never-ending home remodel, even a family vacation at the De’Laruse historic antebellum promises a better night’s sleep. Fat chance in the land of Fat Tuesday when family secrets come to light. Gold was captured during ...

Her next-door neighbor has predicted that Annabelle is destined to live her life as an old maid. Not true, Annabelle declares after hearing this from her neighbor’s son. She’s only forty-two and is just beginning a new life after caring for her invalid mother for years. Yearning for a social life and determined to prove her neighbor wrong, she signs up for a ballroom dancing class where she meets not one, but two eligible bachelors, both vying for her attention. Luke is the new interim CEO at the local hospital, and Jake is a country music star hiding out in Park Place from the ...

Most people think the reason Prudy Millings married the best-looking preacher in the Carolinas—who inexplicably turned psychotic and mowed her down with the church van—is that she was raised all wrong. So not true. Prudy's reclamation of her life begins two years after the crime spree that nearly stopped her heart. She packs up her two precocious children and settles in her parents' South Carolina hometown where she deals with a delightful Proverbs-spewing mama who pretends her grown daughters are virgins.

"A cottage by the sea is the perfect summer vacation spot for bonding and healing old and new wounds for divorced romance writer, Cassandra Phillips and her sister Eleanor. Gentle breezes and fresh salt air lull them into thinking it’s going to be a quiet relaxing summer, but when a mesmerizing, blue-eyed Carl McGee moves into the cottage next door, Cassie’s resolve to never fall for a man again begins to dissolve. When rumors of a drug-smuggling ring along the Carolina coastline surface, there are warning bells that something’s not quite right in paradise and Cassie begins to ...

The unspooling of Toni Lee Wells' Tiffany and Wild Turkey lifestyle begins with a trip to the Luckett County Jail drunk tank. An earlier wrist injury sidelined her pro tennis career, and now she's trading her tennis whites for wild nights roaming the streets of Rose Hill, Georgia. Her wealthy family finally gets fed up with Toni Lee's shenanigans. They cut off her monthly allowance but also make her a sweetheart deal: Get a job, keep it for a year, and you'll receive an early inheritance.

Romaine Wilder, big-city medical examiner with a small-town past, has been downsized and evicted. With few other options, she’s forced to return to her hometown of Roble in East Texas, leaving behind the man she’s dating and the life she’s worked hard to build. Suzanne Babet Derbinay, Romaine’s Auntie Zanne and proprietor of the Ball Funeral Home, has long since traded her French Creole upbringing for Big Texas attitude. She’s a member in a number of ladies’ auxiliaries and clubs, including being in charge of the Tri-County Annual Crawfish Boil and Music Festival. Hanging on to ...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Running in Heels comes “a compassionate, poignant, often humorous story of the complicated relationship between a mother and daughter” (Mariah Stewart, New York Times bestselling author) as they attempt to rediscover the past before it...

A body in the lake. A castle on the ridge. And a town where the new police chief showed up in the mayor’s backyard… with amnesia… riding a stolen horse. Welcome to Camelot, West Virginia—a town where the legends are old, the secrets run deep, and nothing ever goes quite the way it should. Mayor Dreama Avalon just wants to save her hometown. Once a coal-fueled jewel of the Appalachian hills, Camelot is now clinging to its crumbling castle, a run-down main street, and a tourist plan that’s mostly fairy dust and desperation. Dreama’s ready to rebuild. But when a former beauty queen...

Join retired insurance investigator Hank Peavey and his sharp-minded wife Flo as they embark on the road trip of a lifetime—traveling scenic Route 1 from Florida to Maine. But their dream retirement journey takes unexpected detours when murder follows them through five charming Southern towns. From sunny Florida beaches to Virginia’s historic landscape, this fun-loving couple discovers that small-town secrets run deep. Hank’s methodical detective skills and Flo’s uncanny ability to read people make them an unbeatable team as they unravel mysteries the local police can’t crack. If ...