(9)The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society by Darien Gee

The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society

by Darien Gee 

@dariengee

Pages: 449

Publication Date: January 29, 2013

Buy it Here!

I have carried the moniker of "scrapbooker" for many many years.  I started way back in the day, as most everyone started, with Creative Memories and I branched out into my warped form of digital scrapbooking.  I joined a scrapbooking community message board, to which I am still a member and have met some of my very best friends.  So yeah, scrapbooking has played a very big role in my life. 

In her new novel, The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society, Darien Gee takes us back to Avalon, Illinois. In a way, the small town of Avalon reminds me of my own small Midwestern hometown.  Full of good, if not quirky, people who do nothing if not look out for their own.  There is  Madeline who owns the local tea shop, and Frances who is desperately trying to adopt a baby, Isabel who is still trying to deal with her late husband's betrayal, Ava who is trying to raise her son knowing that he will ever know his fathe, and there is Yvonne, the towns only female plumber. And then there is Bettie - Bettie is the town Mother-Hen and works hard at building her Scrapbooking Business. She has created The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society under the guise of running a business and preserving memories, but really, she created the society as a cover for social gatherings.  Will the Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society come through for Bettie in her hour of need? Or will the ladies be so wrapped up in their own lives that they miss the fact that Bettie is needing help?

The Avalon Ladie's Scrapbooking Society was a cute novel.  On the one hand it made me think of my own smalltown hometown - but it also made me very glad that I no longer have to deal with that "everybody in everybody else's business" - it is pretty standard for small towns and made me so very glad that I live in the city now! I did enjoy all of Avalon's residents, especially Yvonne, but I would probably get irritated with Bettie's interfering ways real quick like. 

Bottom line, The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society is a quaint little novel about a quaint little town.    Fans of scrapbooking will fondly recognize some of the terms and tools mentioned and maybe even a little bit of themselves in the characters.  I will be interested in hearing what my scrapbooking sisters think of this one!