Product Description

Just as "The Babysitter's Club" series successfully captured a generation of young girls, Cyndy Salzmann's Friday Afternoon Club series lays claim to moms who cherish long-standing friendship . . . and a bit of mystery. While juggling the responsibilities of carpool, laundry, and ballet lessons, this group of close friends find time to act as sleuths, unraveling mysteries and gaining spiritual truths along the way. Readers will readily identify with these richly drawn characters caught in the chaos of raising a family, maintaining friendships, and sorting out the items of intrigue that draw them in.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #539092 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 282 pages

Customer Reviews

Mystery missing...and a few other things too...
If you are looking for a good mystery...keep looking, this isn't it...an interesting tale with possibilities, maybe, some historical inaccuracies, yes, but not a mystery.

The characters are a mismatch of personalities and as supposed believers, I find the attitudes and actions of some to be contrary to that ideal.
A loud, obnoxious policewoman who is impatient and rude to all and disrespectful to "Aunt Bette", an elderly woman key to the tale.
Another woman is a know-it-all, pushy, domineering "professional" that disregards the speed limit and safe driving and when pulled over by an officer "sweet talks" her way out of a ticket.
The main character lets her family and friends treat her like a door mat. There are no consequences to bad behavior. Sure she has a sense of humor, but absolutely no backbone.
As a homeschooling mom I'm tired right down to my Birkenstocks of the homeschooling mother always being portrayed as the hippie out of time...the quintesential "earth mother"...please!

Now to the story, it supposes that the Underground railroad ran through Nebraska where the story is set. An historical stretch. Then of course it deals with the escaped slaves from THE EVIL SOUTH, as it is always portrayed. Will anyone ever write an accurate story about slavery or will we continue to paint with a broad and often inaccurate brush of the south, plantaton owners and slavery?

One thing I did like were the pages. They have a quilt watermark decorating a portion of each spread, very nice touch, but using the Log Cabin pattern mentioned might have been nicer. I too, as an avid quilter had heard the story of the "Quilt Maps" or quilt codes and found upon further investigation that the Quilt Codes are not supported by historians or quilters or facts, and are pure myth popularized and passed on in the past several years. For more documentation on how the story began you can go to
http://ugrrquilt.hartcottagequilts.com/

The recipes included relate only to a mear passing mention in the story...other authors have already done this and done it better...the novelty is over.

First in the Friday Afternoon Club series
The Friday Afternoon Club is a group of women who get together for some R&R from their busy lives. Liz is a stay-at-home mom who is in the club. She also writes a newspaper column.

One of their members doesn't come to meetings for a few weeks, so they seek her out to discover the problem. Lucy is recovering from the deaths of her husband and mother in the past year and has gone into depression. Her aunt recently left her a Civil War style home in a nearby town.

The club decides to have a get-away weekend to decorate and restore the home. Lucy isn't too sure at first.

Once there, they have some startling discoveries including a diary.

This is a very good book, but it is not your normal mystery with a death to be investigated. Once you understand that, you can relax and really enjoy the camaraderie of the club and how they rally around Lucy to help her out of her depression. This is a great book and I recommend it!

Dying to Decorate
This series is a good read. It's considered Christian lit. but it's not too churchy. I really enjoyed it!