"More Sweet Tea"

After reading "Sweet Tea & Jesus Shoes" last month, I was eager to tuck into the follow-up collection of short stories, "More Sweet Tea." Since I'm not usually a fan of short stories, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed that first volume of southern-themed tales. Now the second book has so inspired me that I'm thinking I'd actually like to *write* a few short stories like these, old-fashioned southern stories that make people smile or laugh out loud.

"Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" by Maureen Hardegree is about a woman who finds herself in a quandary when her hairdresser drops dead of a heart attack. What's the problem? Well, who's going to do her hair before she goes to the hairdresser's viewing? Another tale that had me grinning ear to ear, "The Healing Touch" by Susan Alvis, is about a nurse and her uncle who finds himself experiencing, well, let's just say a painful (but not terminal) ailment that probably doesn't need to be named on a tea blog. His wife, a bit of a herbalist and healer, uses the wrong prescription to treat his ailment and accidentally ends up curing him.

One of the sweetest stories I read, "The Hope Quilt" by Susan Goggins, has a subplot about a woman who teaches her future daughter-in-law to make biscuits. If you saw the "Biscuit Table" vignette in the photos of my friend's wedding earlier this week, you won't be surprised to know that this lovely lady reminded me of that one! And another story in the book, "The Sun, The Moon, and a Box of Divinity" by Clara Wimberly, includes an afternoon tea scene I loved. The hostess tells some young guests, "You know when I was a little girl, livin' in Mobile, Alabama, we had tea every Sunday afternoon. There would be cucumber sandwiches, watercress and cream cheese sandwiches, cheese straws with orange marmalade, and a variety of desserts." "Cucumber sandwiches?" one of the boys said, laughing loudly. "Heck, who'd want to eat a cucumber sandwich?" If you enjoy sweet stories like these, I definitely recommend these two books!