In Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society, Amy Hill Hearth takes the reader back to a time when Naples, Fla., was just a "sunbaked southern backwater town." Hearth writes from the perspective of 80-year-old, divorced Dora Witherspoon, looking back at 1962, when she was a postal worker violating regulations by perusing, on the job, the latest issue of Vogue, addressed to a glamorous newcomer in town, Jackie Hart. When Jackie catches Dora in the act and asks, "What else do you like to read?" the encounter sparks the formation of the Collier County Women's Literary Society, a group that draws an array of local misfits who gather to read and discuss great books--and inadvertently reveal mysteries and secrets about their own lives.
The society grows to include the local librarian, the town's one and only Sears employee, a woman who once did prison time for allegedly killing her husband, a middle-aged poet and a token male member--as well as a young "colored" girl, a maid, who is secretly whisked to the meetings in the racially segregated town.
In the midst of it all, the KKK is hard at work and Collier County is fascinated by an anonymous radio show anchored by Miss Dreamsville, whose mysterious identity spices up life in the small town. Inspired by true events, Amy Hill Hearth has written a heart-tugging story about a band of lively characters finding friendship and freedom from conformity. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines