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Not since Scarlett O’Hara have I met such a lusty and irreverent fictional character. Belle Cantrell is an independent spirit with a mind of her own. It is 1920 and the post-war world is changing, but Belle’s small town of Gentry, Louisiana, is conservative, provincial, and intolerant. Belle fights for suffrage, against the wishes of her husband and mother-in-law, and is arrested for “indecent exposure.” When she is widowed, she is left with the responsibility of running the family farm and raising her daughter Cady alone.
Rebelling against society’s unwritten rules for respectable women, which in her opinion, all say “Don’t,” Belle bends the rules and makes her own. Each chapter begins with an epigram from The Primer of Propriety (“A well-bred lady does not make a spectacle of herself”) or Belle’s own The Southern Girls’ Guide to Men and Other Perils of Modern Life (“The most important thing about virtue is to talk as if you’re in favor of it”).
When Rafe Berlin, her best friend’s brother, comes to town, he arouses feelings in Belle that she thought were gone forever – and feelings that she’s never felt before. And her handsome new overseer, Bourrée LeBlanc, has attractions of his own.
Will Belle’s bad behavior cause her to lose the man she loves?
Filled with conflicts of the time (suffrage, prohibition, intolerance, and Ku Klux Klan activity), THE BAD BEHAVIOR OF BELLE CANTRELL is the prequel to THE SCANDALOUS SUMMER OF SISSY LeBLANC. Humorous and thought provoking, with characters you won’t soon forget, this novel is one I’ll recommend to my friends. Note: There are a few fairly explicit love scenes.
Reviewed by Marie DisBrow
for The Road to Romance
December 30, 2006
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