Dancing Naked in Dixe


Fiction - Chick Lit
322 Pages
Reviewed on 04/27/2012
Buy on Amazon

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    Book Review

Reviewed by Author Anna del C. Dye. for Readers' Favorite

What a fun ride "Dancing Naked in Dixie" has been! I wondered about the name and almost didn’t pick it up. I am glad I did. If not I would have missed out on an excellent, clean tale. I really enjoy the witty and exhilarating scenes that seem to leave you without breath until you turn to the next page. It is a well-done tale, written in a very fun and fast pace. The given descriptions and history are quite complimentary to this story and are delivered nicely.

Reporter Julia Sullivan lives a hurried life in the middle of New York. The fact that she is attention deficit doesn’t help. Her pace has doubled since her mother died two years before. Her father had left her mother after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Julia will never forgive him for that, nor that he packed up her mother’s apartment after she died and before Julia could look at it. Now this man has become her new boss and she is furious, especially when he sends her to a small town in Alabama. The Southern hospitality almost kills her when it takes her from one big plight to another. These range from killer bees that attack her to the manicured nails of the town’s Barbie who sets herself to keeping Julia from taking away her boyfriend. Each problem brings new people into her life and many possibilities for her news article.

This is a very well-written story that will thrill you to the last page. You will find action, secrets, love, and more in every chapter of this tale. It is great entertainment for any reader from late teens to adults.

Alice D.

Julia Sullivan, "Dancing Naked in Dixie’s” narrator, is a travel writer for Getaways magazine and loves her work as she travels all over the world. She has received awards for her articles, believes in what she's doing, but then she meets the new editor of Getaways, her estranged father, David Sullivan. David Sullivan says Julia's writing needs improvement and he sends her on assignment to Eufaula, Alabama to cover the local historic commission's progress. Julia is not happy with her father's attitude towards her work and says she'd rather "dance naked" than go on this assignment. But Julia armed with her bee sting medicine, heads off to Eufaula and finds its old antebellum architecture charming and handsome native son Shug Jordan quite a bit more than charming. Shug heads the Historic Chattahoochee Commission which tries to save old Southern homes in Eufaula from the wrecker's ball of construction companies hoping to build new condominiums in their place. But Shug has a beautiful girlfriend, Mary Katherine, and Julia has faithful boyfriend Andrew back in New York City. And Julia's father David has a few secrets of his very own.

"Dancing Naked in Dixie" is an upbeat and well-written story with good dialogue to boot. The story's characters are believable as the storyline proceeds to the delightful but not quite expected conclusion. Author Lauren Clark offers a fresh and intriguing version of the traditional boy-girl romance and chick lit fans everywhere will be dancing, but not dancing naked in Dixie. The reader's guide at book's conclusion along with one of PD's recipes helps make "Dancing Naked in Dixie" a cut way above above the typical romantic novel. Readers everywhere will love this story.

Trudi LoPreto

“Dancing Naked in Dixie” is the story of Julia Sullivan. Julia is a journalist living and loving life in fast paced, exciting New York City. Julia’s writing assignments take her all over the world until one fateful, unwanted assignment sends her to the Christmas Pilgrimage in Eufaula, Alabama. She will be the guests of long-time residents Shug Jordan and his family. We feel Julia’s pain as she arrives in the slow moving “South” and she finds herself with people very different from any she knows or has ever written about. We laugh as at her first stop her windshield is broken by a tantrum-throwing four year old little girl. We scratch with her as she inadvertently walks into a nest of fire ants. We feel her pain as she is taken to the hospital for a bee sting, that causes a severe allergic reaction. We root her on as she slowly learns to appreciate the slower pace. We smile as she slowly forms special bonds with the planners of the celebration, especially Shug.

Lauren Clark has captured the real life personalities of the hip New Yorker and the caring southern ladies and gentlemen. I became emotionally attached to each of the characters both the good people and the bad. Ms. Clark pulls you into the story and makes it very hard to put “Dancing Naked in Dixie” down. This book is a must read for all romantics, young and old. Lauren Clark has definitely been added to my list of favorite authors.