cover image The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes

The Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes

Cathy Holton, . . Ballantine, $23.95 (306pp) ISBN 978-1-4000-6368-0

Ithaca, Georgia’s Eadie Boone, the soon-to-be-former Nita Broadwell and Lavonne Zibolsky—the Kudzu Debutantes of Holton’s 2006 debut—are back to turn the tables on a scheming society matron in Holton’s second peachy-fine farce. Nita’s ex-mother-in-law, Virginia Broadwell, is a “dominatrix dressed in Anne Taylor” who wants revenge for Nita’s divorcing her son, Charles, and, she thinks, destroying the family law firm. (That divorce was fallout from bad boy behavior at the firm, which also ended Lavonne’s marriage and disrupted Eadie’s in the first Kudzu Debs adventure.) At 65, Virginia marries wealthy redneck Bob Redmon in order to stay afloat, but she’s bent on bankrupting Nita, who is set to marry hot carpenter Jimmy Lee Motes, and—knowing the couple can’t afford a court battle—to then gain custody of her granddaughter, Whitney. Lavonne’s work-aholic single life (happily disrupted by romance) and Eadie’s up and down marriage to lawyer-turned-novelist Trevor are nicely detailed. Holton shines in this farce, proving once again a Kudzu Deb is antisociety, game for most anything and as indestructible as the eponymous vine. (Aug.)