Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

CeeCee is only twelve years old when her mother, who has suffered with mental illness, dies. Her father sends her to live in the south with an unknown relative of her mothers, Aunt Tootie.

This book sounds like it could be quite dark but it is far from depressing and is an uplifting story full of hope. There are plenty of eccentric and funny characters and I defy anyone to read about Miz Hobbs's travelling brassiere and not laugh.

I have now read both of Beth Hoffman's novels and she's a good writer and storyteller. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long for her third. 

Rating: 4 out of 5

 Some of the book blurb:

Twelve-year-old CeeCee is in trouble. For years she’s been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille— the crown-wearing, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town. Though it’s 1967 and they live in Ohio, Camille believes it’s 1951 and she’s just been crowned the Vidalia Onion Queen of Georgia.

The day CeeCee discovers Camille in the front yard wearing a tattered prom dress and tiara as she blows kisses to passing motorists, she knows her mother has completely flipped. When tragedy strikes, Tootie Caldwell, a previously unknown great-aunt comes to CeeCee’s rescue and whisks her away to Savannah. Within hours of her arrival, CeeCee is catapulted into a perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricities—a world that appears to be run entirely by women.