Tag: New Orleans

Dollbaby by Laura Lane McNeal

Lekeisha The Booknerd10 Comments

18693929Published July 3rd 2014 by Pamela Dorman Books / Penguin

Historical-Fiction, Coming-of-Age, Civil Rights Era

Library Hardcover

My Rating 3.5 Stars

b009a-dad13-add-to-goodreads-button3When Ibby Bell’s father dies unexpectedly in the summer of 1964, her mother unceremoniously deposits Ibby with her eccentric grandmother Fannie and throws in her father’s urn for good measure. Fannie’s New Orleans house is like no place Ibby has ever been — and Fannie, who has a tendency to end up in the local asylum — is like no one she has ever met. Fortunately, Fannie’s black cook, Queenie, and her smart-mouthed daughter, Dollbaby, take it upon themselves to initiate Ibby into the ways of the South, both its grand traditions and its darkest secret.

For Fannie’s own family history is fraught with tragedy, hidden behind the closed rooms in her ornate Uptown mansion. It will take Ibby’s arrival to begin to unlock the mysteries there. And it will take Queenie and Dollbaby’s hard-won wisdom to show Ibby that family can sometimes be found in the least expected places.

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