Mermaids in the Basement
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
Reeling from the loss of her mother, plagued with a bad case of writer's block (and don't even talk about those extra twenty pounds), Renata DeChavannes feels as though everything is just plain wrong. And that was before the tabloids caught her sweetheart, filmmaker Ferg Lauderdale, sharing an intimate squeeze with Hollywood's hottest young tamale.
But the granddaughter of the formidable Honora DeChavannes possesses more hell than belle in her backbone—and she's about to reclaim it. Heading south to Honora's home on the Gulf Coast, Renata is determined to stop feeling like a wilted gardenia and emerge as the unstoppable kudzu her beloved grandmother proudly proclaimed she would be. But for that to happen Renata's got to face some not-so-genteel ghosts from her past, discover the truth about the mother she desperately misses, and make peace with the first man who abandoned her and broke her heart: her handsome and distant father.
Michael Lee West
Michael Lee West is the author of Mad Girls in Love, Crazy Ladies, American Pie, She Flew the Coop, and Consuming Passions. She lives with her husband on a rural farm in Tennessee with three bratty Yorkshire terriers, a Chinese Crested, assorted donkeys, chickens, sheep, and African Pygmy goats. Her faithful dog Zap (above) was the inspiration for a character in the novel.
Read more from Michael Lee West
Mermaids in the Basement: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mad Girls In Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Mermaids in the Basement
Related ebooks
Mermaids in the Basement: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer Calories: A Melanie Deming Manhattan Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDistilled Vestiges Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPulp Literature Summer 2022: Issue 35 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMungwort Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath Among the Stars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Homicide in Hooker's Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDead Low Tide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath Of A Highland Heavyweight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Midnight Eye Files: Collection 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Midnight Eye Files: Collection 2: Midnight Eye Collections, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRegina Shen: Vigilance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drowned Under Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoor Is A Jar Fall 2016 Issue 3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOmand's Creek: A gripping crime thriller packed with mystery and suspense Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWho Censored Roger Rabbit? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whistling Down the Wind: Whistling River Lodge Mysteries, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsColdwater Confession: A Coldwater Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRuby Falls: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hidden Pieces: A Misty Pines Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFireside Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Nights in Split Town City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe River Between Hearts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Curb Appeal: a CW McCoy Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Rant of Ravens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot Only But Also Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCabin Fever: Seamus McCree, #3 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dropping Out: A Tree Change Novel-in-stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Deep Thing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSearch Heartache Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Mermaids in the Basement
122 ratings7 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A nice, light summer read. It's a two-dayer, so easy and breezy. A little formulaic, but sometimes a reader needs that.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Author Michael Lee West is one of the south’s treasures as she’s shown with her previous works set amongst the live oaks and Spanish moss. Mermaids in the Basement is a worthy addition to her funny and convoluted tales of the modern day south and the resilient (and sometimes off-beat) women who live there.No blowsy magnolia blossom, screenwriter Renata is down and depressed by her mother and step-father’s unexpected death in a plane crash several months prior to the opening of the story. She has a distant and superficial relationship with her father, who is about to marry a very young trophy wife. Her writer’s block is flaring up even as the latest deadline on a crap screenplay is due. And to cap it all off, she sees a tabloid showing her boyfriend, a successful director, in a clinch with the latest Hollywood “It girl” on location in Ireland. After an unproductive call to boyfriend Ferg, a few too many drinks, a bonfire, and alcohol-inspired Fed-Exing, all of which turn out to have been Bad Ideas, Renata finds a letter from her mother marked to be read only in case of an emergency. This letter drives Renata’s flight to her paternal grandmother’s home in coastal Alabama to find out the truth behind her parents' life together. Once home, matriarch and grande dame Honora, former nanny Gladys, and long-time family friend and former actress Isabelle conspire to help Renata find the steel in her backbone, share the skeletons in the family closet with her, and show her that her future, while anchored on the past, can be made to suit the person she is becoming.Filled with grand parties, shocking revelations, and more side plots than you can shake a stick at, West has created her trademark eccentric but entirely believable characters and plot. She has a way with the turn of a phrase that sometimes doesn't dawn on the reader until they are a paragraph further on but will still elicit a bark of laughter. This is a snappy, witty, and fun read that sucks you and and doesn't let you go, through both the unconventional, crazy happenings and the more mundane. And it will make you a bit sad you don't have characters like this in your real life, because honey, you know they'd take you for some wild ride. An easy, smooth read, West does tackle some heavier topics than calling this a breezy romantic novel would suggest. And she handles them deftly, not allowing them to destroy the light touch of the whole. This is one I definitely recommend.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was a fast read of a very dysfunctional family. Every layer of discovery by the heroine led to more secrets and another web of misunderstandings and half-truths. If you like the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, this might be for you.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Loved this book!! Crazy southern women; great characters!! Would make a great discussion book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5After the tabloids post a picture of her fiancee with another woman, Renata DeChavannes heads to her grandmother's home on the Gulf Coast to mend her broken heart. During her stay the story of her parents comes to light. Told in several voices, this book is a jumble of stories of strange, yet uninteresting, people. I loved the cover, I wish what was between the covers was as good.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Books about Southern charm & secrets seem to be everywhere. I got a bit bogged down in the details of gucchi handbags and affairs but this was a good read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An excellent read. Renata has just lost her beloved mother and stepfather and finds pictures of her boyfriend in the tabloids with an actress. Renata goes to her grandmother's estate in the gulf shore of alabama --- and learns a lot about her family's history.