Review: Bet Your Bottom Dollar

Bet Your Bottom Dollar by Karin Gillespie
4 stars

Reasons for reading: Recommended by my friend Vidalia; South Carolina setting

First line: "Yellow and red leaves spun around my face as I tramped up the cracked sidewalk to the Bottom Dollar Emporium."

Book description: Welcome to the Bottom Dollar Emporium, where everything from coconut mallow cookies to Clabber Girl Baking Powder costs only a dollar, and coffee and gossip are free.
For Elizabeth, Mavis, and Attalee, logging nine to five at the Bottom Dollar is not just work time, it's family time. So when news gets out that the Super Saver Dollar Store chain plans to set up shop and run the Bottom Dollar out of town, things go catawampus. Manager Elizabeth, who has a good head for business even though she flunked pin-curling in beauty school, teams up with a crew of dedicated do-gooders bent on saving the Bottom Dollar from the fate of spare change. But when Elizabeth's unlikely new love interest -- who also happens to be Cayboo Creek's wealthiest bachelor -- pitches woo, out come some startling revelations about her past that turn life more than a little interesting for all her friends and neighbors.

My thoughts: Yup, another SC book! I actually took this one on the trip but didn't have time to read it. I gulped it down it in about a day while I was home sick after we got back.

This was a lovely little book - I actually just recommended it as an "inspirational" read because it was such fun and the Bottom Dollar girls worked so hard to save the shop (come on, you knew they would!). It's another book full of quirky small-town folks and each chapter begins with a quote from a bumper sticker, sign in someone's shop, someone's favourite quote or a song from the jukebox in the Tuff Luck Tavern, such as selection F-7: "I Still Miss You, Baby, But My Aim Is Getting Better."

There are some twists to rival a soap opera, but they don't seem over-the-top. Elizabeth is a great character - a very clever small-town girl with a heart of gold. So drop into the Bottom Dollar Emporium - you won't be disappointed!