‘Saving CeeCee’ a Southern story of friendship

  There comes along a book once in a rare while that just takes your breath away and makes you glad to be a reader. And when that lovely book happens to be set in the South, oh, it is so much sweeter! 
  There is a long line of Southern women writers who are beloved for their fictional masterpieces — Margaret Mitchell (“Gone With The Wind”), Harper Lee (“To Kill A Mockingbird”), Fannie Flagg (“Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistlestop Cafe”), Rebecca Wells (“Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood”), to name a few. With her debut novel, “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt,” Beth Hoffman stands poised to join the ranks of these cherished authors with a sweet Southern story of growing up and coming home. 
  Life changed for 12-year-old Cecelia Rose “CeeCee” Honeycutt in 1967. For years, she has been the sole caretaker of her mentally unstable mother, Camille. CeeCee’s momma was known as the “crazy” lady, who would parade through Willoughby, Ohio, in torn prom dresses, a tiara on her head, trying desperately to recapture her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. A traveling salesman, CeeCee’s daddy had long ago had enough of his young wife’s foolishness, and left Camille and CeeCee to fend for themselves most of the time. But when tragedy strikes and Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to face an uncertain world alone. To the rescue comes a whirlwind of perfume, hats and Southern graciousness in the form of her previously unknown Great-Aunt Tootie Caldwell.
  Aunt Tootie takes CeeCee away to Savannah, Ga., to a world that seems to CeeCee to be run entirely by women. There's the next-door neighbor, Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard. And Tootie's very wise (and soon to be CeeCee’s best friend) housekeeper, Oletta Jones. And the crazy Violene Hobbs, who is a bit nasty and occasionally entertains a local police officer while wearing a peignoir.
  In “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt,” Hoffman paints an amazing portrait of life in 1960s Georgia, capturing a certain unusual gentleness of the time, with the social and political upheaval of the world a long way from the beautiful bubble CeeCee inhabited. You can almost smell the sweet magnolia blossoms and the fresh peach preserves in every word. She has also captured the rarefied glory of sweet female friendship that is so indicative of women raised in the South. (That’s not to say Northern gals don’t have close friendships, it's just different below the Mason-Dixon line, sugar!) This is gorgeous and glorious novel that celebrates the indomitable strengths of those female friendships and how very much those relationships are cherished. 
  What a brilliant way to start off a new year of reading! Run, do not walk, to get your copy of this marvelous novel, share it with your best girlfriends and then sit back and bask in the Southern sweetness of “Saving CeeCee Honeycutt.”