This month’s review is a bit late because I spent the morning finishing the book! I woke with only 100 pages to go, and I really wanted to know what happened to Fern, Belle, Leona, Dean, Doyle, Roy … and Bill and Hillary–the emus.

In Patti Frye Meredith’s debut novel, South of Heaven, the reader is transported back to the early 90’s, to a small Southern town, where secrets are buried not so deep below the surface of dusty red clay. It doesn’t take much to scratch that surface exposing everything, and in Meredith’s novel it’s not just the emus that do the scratching. A tornado stirs up the dirt, and the memory of a local MIA Vietnam soldier and war hero feels more present than missing. At least to some folks.

Darnell Arnoult says of South of Heaven, “With an impeccable ear for dialogue, an artist’s eye for detail, and deep understanding of the push and pull of family, Meredith gives us South of Heaven – a celebration of growth and survival when confronted by mistakes and denial and, ultimately how people can be transformed by acceptance and the astonishing surprises we all should be looking for. A beautiful read.”

The morning temp was 40 degrees when I took green tea, steel-cut oatmeal, and South of Heaven out to the deck. I’m glad I decided to finish before posting. Meredith had her characters revealing the depths of their secrets layer by layer all the way to the end.

Patti and I shared a classroom during Table Rock Writers this past August. I knew her, but not really. During class her self-deprecating sense of humor and down-to-earth honesty and observance of life around us had us all laughing. Her humor is in her novel too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

South of Heaven is available through Main Street Rag Publishing