Along Came Mary: A Bad Girl Creek Novel

by Jo-Ann Mapson

Book Overview

USA Today called Jo-Ann Mapson's national bestseller Bad Girl Creek "a valentine to oceans of good women who survive bad beginnings and worse men." Now the author, hailed as "one of the most gifted writers of the contemporary urban West" (Los Angeles Times), brings back the hard-luck women of her acclaimed previous novel -- and introduces another indelible character into their midst.
After finally wising up to her...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743224620
• ISBN13: 9780743224628
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

One of the best....

This book was one of the best I've read so far. While "Bad Girl Creek" wasnt one of my favorites, this little gem sure was. I couldn't put it down, I was so intrigued by it...especially Phoebe and Sally. Can't wait to read "Goodbye Earl."

Great Gal_Pal Book

Although about half of the events in this book took place at the flower farm on the central California coast, much of it followed the travels of Mary Madigan and "Rotten Rick" as they wound their way west from Oklahoma to the coast. The reader knows that a connection will be made but not exactly how.I was glad to revisit the women of Bad Girl Creek and catch up on their lives. Poor Phoebe is dealing (and not very well) with a personal disaster while Beryl has moved to Alaska with Earl. Mapson must have great relationships with some really great girlfriends because she has wonderful insight into women's friendships and how women provide unquestioned support for each other.I love reading and getting lost in this author's stories. As one reviewer said, "you don't just read her books, you take up residence in them." This is so true....... I always feel like I am there, participating in the lives of the well-developed characters, feeling their joy and their pain.A great read that I hated to finish!

Another fabulous read from Mapson!

What a novel! An exhilarating read about friendship, love and the way paths intersect, even far from the flower farm. All the glorious women from "Bad Girl Creek" are back, Mary, Phoebe, Beryl, Nance and Ness--old friends with new secrets--and we also have the delicious Rotten Rick. What is so wonderful here is the way Mapson understands, appreciates, and shows us female friendships, how she knows a heart can be torn to shreds, but it can also heal. Written in prose as crystalline as a mountain stream, Mapson breaks your heart, makes you laugh, and she does it brilliantly. I can't wait for the next book in the trilogy.

It can't get any better than this novel

I am a huge Mapson fan and was looking forward to her new book. What ended up happening with this one, like all the others, was that I couldn't put it down until I finished. The bad girls are back and better than ever, and surprisingly, "Rotten Rick" is also back! The setting, the problems (and resolutions) these women have, and the story of Rick and Maddy was just so well-written, it felt real to me. What I found the most interesting was the points of view it was written from--in "Bad Girl Creek," it alternated between the points of view of all the women; in this book, it took a different twist and alternated between Phoebe, Beryl, Rick, and Maddy. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about brave, feisty women and one man who eventually shows that he's not rotten. Definite two-plus thumbs up!

More from the Best Bad Girl

You don't read a Jo-Ann Mapson novel. You take up residence in it, as if it were the comfortable home of a good friend. When it ends, dumping you rudely into reality, you want to move back in and claim squatter's rights. This was never more true than with Bad Girl Creek, the first book in this trilogy, so now I'm thrilled (and relieved) to find that you really can go home again. The Bad Girls are all back, and there's an intriguing addition--Maddy, a honky tonk angel who's gritty, heart-breaking and real. She's from Oklahoma and her life becomes entwined with the flower farm gang of four in a simple twist of fate that only Mapson could dream up and pull off. One of my favorite things about her writing, as in all her previous books, is the way she weaves the separate strands of her characters' lives together with deliciously fascinating details on various subjects, like flowers and music, pulling all the threads into a tapestry world so compelling and involving you want to wrap it around yourself and settle in for the duration.