Bet Your Bottom Dollar

Elizabeth Polk's cozy Southern life is in turmoil. Her boyfriend and fiancé, Clip, inexplicably dumps her three weeks after proposing. To add insult to injury, he's been tooling around town in a spiffy new pickup and was spotted at the Wagon Wheel feeding local floozy Jonelle a T-bone steak. That really burns Elizabeth up—Clip always steered her in the direction of the chopped steak special when they ate there!

Also, her job at the Bottom Dollar Emporium is in jeopardy—a big chain discount store is moving into Cayboo Creek, South Carolina, and Bottom Dollar owner Mavis is worried they'll be driven out of business. Elizabeth has worked there for 10 years, and she's happy being manager of the town's unofficial drop-in center and show more gossip central. To save her job, Elizabeth initiates a petition campaign against the chain store and tries to keep Mavis' spirits up, all while contending with a bizarre family, colorful locals and a new love interest from the ritzier side of the tracks.

A light and pleasant read, Bet Your Bottom Dollar is the first in the Bottom Dollar Girls series. The "girls" are often funny and touching, but some of the plot points concerning Elizabeth's family secrets are predictable, and the local color gets a mite thick.

Fans of Southern-fried charm and humor will enjoy the chapter headings, with pithy Southern sayings from local menus, church bulletins and country hits from the Tuff Luck Tavern's jukebox. The culture clash between Elizabeth and Timothy, scion of a paper-cup factory family, is witty and amusing, but their whirlwind romance seems underwritten, and the plucky Elizabeth's obliviousness to her own talents and charms is irksome at times. show less

Recently I found myself in our little local shopping mall, with an hour or more before my ride home would arrive and nothing to read (since the bookstore there closed last fall.) Fortunately there was still Big Lots, which I recalled usually has some books on a shelf near the greeting cards. Among all the cookbooks and self-help there were a very few novels, and I was fortunate to find this one, which whiled away the time quite nicely. It's set in a small town in South Carolina near the Georgia line (the big city is Augusta, GA)where the heroine, Elizabeth, is the manager and youngest employee of the local independent Dollar Store. She, the owner, Mavis, and elderly but still feisty Attalee are concerned when they hear that a big chain show more dollar store is coming to town. But that's not Elizabeth's only problem -- her fiance has dumped her right after their engagement party, and she's not sure about the motives of the wealthy woman who drives in from Augusta to snap up bargains and try to run Elizabeth's life. Humor, romance, and even a little mystery round out this very enjoyable story. show less

A perfect book for me today! I dragged alawn chair under a sycamore tree and enjoyed a big glass of cold icedtea while I read all about Elizabeth Polk, manager of the BottomDollar Emporium. Elizabeth's little Southern town is facing the worstcrisis in recent memory; a national chain, the Super Saver DollarStore, is headed into Cayboo Creek, and the town isall, "cattywampus". The plot seems to dribble away at the end, butI'd have enjoyed it just for the fresh Southern similes.

This is a lovely, Southern charm, "Chick-lit" book. A perfect summer diversion. I will keep reading this series.

The author has never claimed to have written the next great classic so i definitely do not understand why anyone would read this and not write a positive review. It's a fun read. It's a feel good, make you smile, wish you were there yourself type book. And yes, it takes place in the south.
The Bottom Dollar is just what it sounds like, a dollar store in a small homey town where everyone knows who you are. And as is happening all over the country right now, a big box store moves in and the future for everyone at the Bottom Dollar is obvious...
The story centers around Elizabeth, her 'career', her love life and the brilliant idea she had that could possibly save the store AND the folks she loves.
Simple but solid.

Ok, so this is a first novel which is always a dicey thing to sample, plus it's a "Southern" novel, which is usually right up my alley, but this fell flat for me. The words were all there and the story unfolded in the proper manner but it was just missing the zip that makes a book a winner for me. For one thing, it tried too hard to be Southern Hick and missed by a country mile. (I know because I AM a Southern Hick. LOL) The names were just too cutsey poo, the "hickness" too contrived, the story too pat. Besides, it really disturbs me to see a grown woman call her grandmother "Meemaw" and have everybody in town refer to her that way, too.

I realized that I just don't like chick lit. Maybe the occassional Marian Keyes book (though if you've read 2, you've read them all) but as a genre, I find the woman neither charming in their ditzyness nor would I want to be them or have them for a friend. So Bet your Bottom Dollar has a 'charming' 'ditzy' southern girl and blah, blah, blah, I started skimming at page 30 and didn't even bother going to the end. My fault. I've got to stop thinking I like this stuff.