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Mindy's Interviews with Writers
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THE GARDEN ANGEL Mindy receives a 2008-2009 Individual Artist Fellowship Award in Prose from the South Carolina Arts Commission. Mindy's next novel, Secret Keepers, will be published by St. Martin's Press in Spring/Summer '09. Secret Keepers is set in a small Southern town--a land of neglected confederate monuments and corrupt Christ-centered shopping centers--and where, in a weed-swallowed heirloom garden, the story of a tragic figure from the town's past is gradually revealed, unearthing one woman's secret yearnings and sending the conflicted lives of her family in new directions. More information soon.
The Writing Room Read Mindy's blog NOVEL THOUGHTS random musings on writing, reading and the earth. Visit A GOOD BLOG IS HARD TO FIND southernauthors.blogspot.com a group of Southern authors who blog about books, writing, new releases and more. THE GARDEN ANGEL now out in paperback from Picador. THE GARDEN ANGEL appears on NPR Morning Edition's Booksellers' Summer Reading Picks. Visit npr.org to read comments by Rona Brinlee, owner of THE BOOK MARK in Atlantic Beach, Florida, who was interviewed for the story. THE GARDEN ANGEL selected by The Pulpwood Queens Book Club, the largest “meeting and discussing” book club in America, with chapters from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to Los Angeles, California. Kathy Patrick, founder of the Pulpwood Queens, is owner of Beauty and the Book in Jefferson, Texas -- the only Hair Salon/Book Store in the country. See beautyandthebook.com to learn more about The Pulpwood Queens Book Club. THE GARDEN ANGEL is in its fourth printing and made the Southeastern Independent Booksellers' (SEBA) bestsellers' list. In Sans Souci, South Carolina, talk is cheap, real estate even more so. No one knows this better than Cutter Johanson, a gruff tomboy who waits tables, writes obits, and makes every effort, however comical and in the face of her mercenary relatives, to avert the sale of the dilapidated ancestral home. And despite her plucky resolve, all appears to be lost—until she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Elizabeth, a shy and fragile academic who puts both their fates on the mend. "Mindy Friddle has a great comic touch, and her novel is a touching, heartfelt debut." "The glory of a past that may never be reclaimed is the theme of this unique and satisfying novel ...At times wonderfully comic and sad enough to provoke tears, The Garden Angel is an addictive read, and an enthralling story filled with both loss and hope." --- The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers (Fall 2004 Selection) "A comic delight...Winning characters and piquant wit, with an underpinning of graciousness: a standout." --- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Friddle has a way with the comic yet apt image...funny, down-to-earth and steeped in a sense of place." ---The Washington Post " Mindy Friddle's first novel is the literary equivalent of Grace Kelly--smart and stylish, elegant and timeless, destined to become a classic." "Friddle writes with comic grace. THE GARDEN ANGEL is soulful and satisfying, as southern as a slice of watermelon on a hot summer day." --- Charlotte Observer "...Friddle concentrates her considerable talents on developing fully realized protagonists who earn and deserve the reader's respect." --- Booklist Reviews Here is a wonderful debut, a novel full of laugh-out-loud humor but also heartbreak as Friddle’s women struggle to honor the past while accommodating the present. Cutter Johanson is a heroine Eudora Welty would be proud to claim and one few readers will forget. THE GARDEN ANGEL is a book I did not want to end.
"Our house sat at the end of Gerard Avenue: coquettish and tattered, on tippy toes, it seemed, from the encroaching world. In the backyard, our family cemetery guarded its weed-choked dead beside a two-lane highway that should have been four. Click here for more.
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THE GARDEN ANGEL: A Novel - - - THE GARDEN ANGEL |
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