While I would have preferred more illustrations, this is still one of the best books out there on Seminole art and artifacts. This is a must have if you are interested in Seminole material culture. Such a shame it is out of print.

I will not waste time with a plot rehashing. This book was a nouveux piece of trash. I had the unfortunate experience of not only reading this book but being is Ms. Boyd's creative writing class at Connecticut College. I feel the author garnishes attention toward her writing by attempting to write outlandish plots...she conducted herclass the same way...anything for attention, Blanch. I am an avid reader of literature and this book hardly qualifies. Superficial it is. If you would like to read a good book revolving around the south, I recommend anyone of the following, YaYa Sisterhood, New Orleander, Crazy Ladies, or Dorothy Allison's work. Do not waste your precious time reading these pointless attempts at humor and life. I would have given this negative stars but I could not. Most people are not amused by the brash, senseless, and pathetic tone of this book. As I said before, it hardly qualifies as literature...maybe a 90's version of a Danielle Steel novel.

I saw Ms. Boyd on a panel in San Francisco talking to Norman Mailer (expecting all out war) but she was charming, funny and very interesting. You don't have to be a lesbian, a Southerner or even a woman to enjoy her work. This series of essays will have you feeling the roar of the Nascar race cars and she then takes a critical, perceptive, yet affectionate look at her Southern family, friends and culture. Well written too.

I was introduced to Blanche McCrary Boyd by my creative-writing professor, who only advised that she was a good essayist. If you knew him, you knew this meant she was not writing persuasive essays or stumping for a cause.

What I like best about this collection of essays is that they are neither feminist nor non-feminist, they are not about being a lesbian or even, necessarily, about being a woman. They are occasionally narrative, occasionally quite insightful, often funny. They're easy to read, enjoyable, and if you *want* to delve deeper (you don't have to in order to appreciate the book), the author is saying something about being human and being individual, or in Shakespearean coin, to thine own self true. Not as wild as her Revolution of Little Girls or Terminal Velocity, it is suitable for a wider sort of audience.

If you enjoy reading about other cultures (I'm a northerner) and other lifestyles (I'm a very traditional heterosexual girl), this book is a good place to start. Like reading Frederick Douglass's Classic Slave Narratives, it cannot truly teach us what it is like to truly live these people's lives, but it gives us a glimpse of their experiences and -- if only by analyzing our own reactions to their perspectives and opinions -- a deeper undertanding of our own experiences and subtle preconceptions.

I found this book almost impossible to read:the characters were either weird for weird's sake or just silly. The "heroine" was forever speculating on people's characters without a clue as to what makes people do what they do; she kept doing stupid things to further the (nearly non-existent) plot. I read and rather enjoyed The Thin Woman, but this book was not only a terrible mystery; it was a terrible book. For really excellent British mysteries read anything by Elizabeth George or Martha Grimes.

she's very good indeed, but sadly, this is not the best example of that! It's still readable, however, at least in my opinion.

A standard device in fiction is that of the baby left on a doorstep, who, upon reaching adulthood, or something reasonably approaching that state, sets out to find the birth parents.

The author hangs a 'Pastoral Mystery" (the sub-title of the book) on this premise. Set in rural modern-day England at a country house, Cloisters, (once a monastery, of course), the past is nearly as important as the present, with generations of the same family and/or townspeople laying the groundwork for the secrecy surrounding the parentage of the heroine, Tessa Fields.

Left on the doorstep of a vicarage, Tessa is told just such an engaging story throughout her life. Her adoptive 'Mum' dies when Tessa is just 11, and she is cared for thereafter by her 'Dad', the vicar, and his housekeeper, Fergy. A short stint in London as a career girl includes time spent at The Heritage, an antique shop run by the large and shambling Angus Hunt. All is for naught, however, in the face of the increasing pressure Tessa puts on herself to discover her real parentage. A closet romantic, she makes frequent references to such unrelated Regency-period staples as highwaymen and Lord Byron.

Cannell is a master (mistress?) at inventing eccentric characters; the Tramwell sisters, Primrose and Hyacinth, loom large in Tessa's story, as does Butler (the not-quite reformed burglar who stays on as the butler); Chantal, the beautiful and clairvoyant young gypsy woman, who is in love with Tessa's own love, Harry, and who supports herself as cook at Cloisters while earning her master's degree; Harry himself, (the missing unidentified heir); Bertie, another adopted youngster who has an imaginary friend, Fred, who nearly gets them all killed, and so on. In other words, your typical English house-party guest list.

At times, Tessa is a bit much, and you may wish for the end of the book to please hurry up and get to you, but overall, this is still an engaging and witty book. It could have used better editing; if misspellings get on your nerves, you'll find yourself becoming more aggravated than most readers. Nevertheless, all does end reasonably well, for Tessa does discover her birth mum and her own real love, almost simultaneously. They also discover a secret treasure which guarantees the continuance--for years to come--of Cloisters, but with the roof finally mended.

I'm not sure what happened here. I actually wanted to rate this two stars and a half, but that's not possible, so I've decided to be generous. For the characters in this book were likable enough but the plot and story was slow and awkward, and frankly, I became very bored halfway through the book and had to put it down for a few days before I could finish it. The strange thing is that when I read Ms. Cannell's next book, a second Ellie Haskell mystery, it was so good, exactly the quality I had been expecting from Down The Garden Path. I think Ms. Cannell's Ellie Haskell books are her best and there her talent shows. But as for the others...quite frankly, God Save the Queen was even worse than this one in it's way.