Q: What do you get when you cross Desperate Housewives with Dog The Bounty Hunter and Thelma & Louise?
A: The Ladies Temperance Club’s Farewell Tour by Jeff Lee of course…
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I opened up my copy of this book. I’d heard it being compared to Thelma & Louise, but as I’ve never seen that movie, it didn’t actually mean all that much to me. What I actually found in the pages of The Ladies Temperance Club’s Farewell Tour went far beyond the description of the movie that I looked up on Wikipedia…
The prologue sets the entire feel to the book in such a few words, by introducing the only character that you don’t mind seeing in a crisis!
“Jack Thibideau was a con man and a thief. A bottom feeder who didn’t have much use for any tax-exempt Judeo-Christian outfit that discouraged its members from separating others from their hard earned shekels.
He also didn’t have a lot of patience for the rules, regulations and bylaws of the rest of the world’s religious clubs and associations…”
The story itself revolves around the active membership of the Newbury Park Ladies’ Temperance Club. Vonda, Kay and Francine are three close friends who support each other through the thick and thin of daily life, accompanied by as many bottles of wine as they can drink together.
Vonda is married to Jack Thibideau and after one particularly nasty encounter with Jack’s taste in porn and alcohol, coupled with many good reasons for divorcing the guy, Vonda picks up a nearby trophy and does to Jack what any thinking person would like to do…
The hijinks start after Francine and Kay find Vonda and decide to take her on a road trip in Jack’s luxury RV. They stuff Jack’s body into the RV’s onboard chest freezer and disappear into the night.
This is one book you are going to find yourself snorting, cheering and laughing aloud at!
Be prepared to have to read pieces out or explain what you are reacting to, or alternatively, you could suggest that the inquirer read the book themselves. Either way, it is a rollercoaster ride of emotion and entertainment from beginning to end.
Jeff Lee has really captured the whole road trip movie feel and his characters are perfectly crafted, drawing you into the story and making you care about them in so few words. His descriptions at each pitstop they take and the encounters they have keep the story flowing nicely, especially after Fish and his Sidekicks get involved.
In fact my only criticism is that I wanted to know more about the three main characters. You find out a lot about Vonda through Jack’s back story, but you don’t really understand much about Francine and Kay’s lives until a good two thirds of the way into the book. There is enough there for the other two members of the Ladies Temperance club to have their own books, prequels if you will, leading into this one.
This is a book that I think will lift the spirits no matter how many times you read it, and one that I can seriously see becoming a box office blockbuster.
The World of The Teigr Princess 