The Red Hat Club by Haywood Smith

This is another novel I picked up from a bargain bin (are you seeing a trend here?). It is the story of five middle-aged former debutantes. They have a life-long friendship and lunch monthly, wearing purple outfits and red hats. The story, set in the Deep South, is told in the first person by one of the debutantes and flashes back and forth between present day marital woes and The Good Old Days, when teenaged girls Went Steady and aspired to marry rich men from the right side of the tracks.

On the face of things, the book describes the five friends and their quest to help one of their own prove her husband is cheating on her, in a way that sticks it to him, and guarantees she will be able to continue in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed. It is chick-lit at its finest - the reader roots for the girls from start to finish.

Character development is predictable but thorough in this one. Smith tells the story of each woman from the perspective of the narrator, but in a way that contributes nicely to the overall story. Current circumstances and past history are intertwined well in each character and everything wraps up well. Elements of teenaged passion, lost love, marriage of convenience, infidelity and revenge all come together in a satisfying ending that left me wishing for a sequel. A few little twists at the end take this book beyond the typical pulp bestseller, although the writing style itself sometimes left something to be desired (occasionally, the language choices of the narrator seemed a bit inauthentic). Not exactly literary, but for marginally vacuous, light reading, I definitely recommend this one.