“The sweeter you bless somebody, the more you hate them. But nobody can get mad at you, because you’re just being a good Christian lady,” Frankie said, her eyes wide and guileless.”

Type-A Margot Cary is the leading event planner for the crème de la crème of Chicago high society. No request is too extravagant for her to execute with trademark perfection. That is, until an unfortunate incident involving a shrimp tower, live flamingos, and a shellfish allergy puts her on the blacklist of the rich and social and out of a job. With the lights about to be shut off in the trendy condo she can no longer afford, and her savings account dwindling, Margot’s situation is near to desperate.


I LOVED THIS BOOK! I love books that can make me laugh out loud and Sweet Tea and Sympathy did just that. Kyle and Margot are both perfect! Such a fun and quirky ride. Will definitely be reading more from this author!

Unfortunately I could not get into this one. But I will try again with this author in the future! :)

This was a sweet book. I loved the story and the characters the author creates in a back roads southern town. However, I wasn’t sure if it was a romance or about family dynamics. I really needed more of one or the other to have been completely satisfied in this book. I wasn’t aware this was a series going in. All in all, I suppose this hit the spot for me. Bless her heart being one of my favorite Southern sayings ever!! This was a relatable, funny, easy to read book.

This is a very typical read-a career woman goes to a small town only to want to get back to her career as quickly as possible to end up falling in love with a local hunk with small children. It reads like a Hallmark movie actually. The characters and settings are quirky and all this elements lead to an ordinary but still nice read.

OMG! If southern sweet tea is a book, THIS IS IT! Oh Molly Harper, you melt my heart with your lovely small town settings, quirky family, and nutty characters. I live in the south I wish my town was like this! I need book 3 now!

It’s About Family

Make no mistake, this is Margot’s story through and through. She’s lost her job, her reputation and her home, so she gratefully accepts a position in the family business as a planning consultant in Lake Sackett, Georgia. Her father also works in the family business, the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop, and she hasn’t spoken to him since her parents’ divorce when she was a small child. He had his own obstacles to overcome and sometimes seems a mere shadow in this story. Margot’s life goes from top of the heap to bottom of the pile. She not only faces job challenges, but learning how to deal with quirky relatives she doesn’t remember, a dog who’s adopted her, family dynamics in general, her attraction to the local school principal, and her feelings of abandonment. It takes a whole lot of support from her McCready clan to help her heal, but it’s totally worth the journey.

Instead of your typical rom-com, this series is about family and although they work to overcome challenges in their lives, the love and support they show each other shines through. It’s a bonus that all this includes some pretty funny laughs and a bit of romance thrown in, but then that’s what happens in our lives, too.

You can't go wrong with a new Molly Harper book and series--Sweet Tea and Sympathy was a fun read. I liked Margot and Kyle, and loved Kyle's girls (and Margot's rescue dog Arlo-- those three are real scene stealers). Watching Margot go from fairly frosty northern girl to don't-mess-with-my-people reclaimed southern girl was a riot--the big showdown before the Founder's Day celebration was classic Molly Harper smart-girl-kicks-butt-and-takes-names fun. I can't wait to revisit the whole gang in future series books!

Rating: 4 stars / A-

I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. 

This book sounded pretty interesting to me and the cover looked so cute. I'm glad that I read it, I really liked Margot's character a lot. The supporting characters were all charming and hilarious as well but Margot specifically I identified with a lot. This book was funny and heart-warming, I laughed out loud and I teared up at a couple points too. It was a sweet love story and I really ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Kyle is a widower and I thought that the author handled the emotional complication of that, as well as the emotions of his two young daughters, very well. This was the perfect book for my vacation reading and I really enjoyed it. I would recommend it!

This was a light-hearted, fun, and funny read - especially for Southerners such as myself. I love the author's characterization and how each person was brought to life. There was definitely some realism regarding a new person coming into a small town. I can't say that I absolutely loved it, but it's a good read!

This book was F-U-N. I didn't know what to expect, but it was a great surprise. It followed the main character Margot on her journey back to a small town in Georgia following an embarrassing career killing move. When she can't find a job, her estranged father's family reaches out for her to join their family business. Desperate she agrees to head to small town Lake Sackett and the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shack.

Did you pause after reading that? I needed to take a moment to wrap my mind around it too. But, trust me, it sets the stage for a fun and hilarious few parts of the novel. You follow Margot on a journey of love, friendship, and unexpected family in this cute little novel. Throw in a crazy PTA member or two, and you have a seriously funny book. I thought it was a light, quick read and if you enjoy anything with a little southern humor Sweet Tea and Sympathy would be a great pick for you.

It's hard not to love the writing of Molly Harper, and she doesn't let you down with this novel. The quirky characters and uniquely southern setting can keep you laughing till the end. It veers from the formulaic big city girl goes back to her small town home with clever dialogue and clever people you can just picture, her writing is so crisp.

My second Molly Harper book and it was a much better experience than the first one. I look forward to reading more by her.

I loved the dynamics of this book. The characters were so fun & down to earth. Harper really made them very relatable. The book ended how I wanted it to, but I was a little nervous for a bit! I'm interested in seeing what the other books in the series are about.

I love Molly Harper’s presentation of quirky, small-town life. If you like your small town romance with some fun, but without fur and fangs, here is a Molly Harper series for you.

We got a introduction to some of the main characters in the novella, Save a Truck, Ride a Redneck, which came out at the end of 2017 which explained how the McCready Family Funeral Home and a Bait Shop came to be in the same place.

The property has been owned by the McCready family for generations. (The ebook has a family history breakdown for ease of reference.)

The main character, Margot Cary, is the daughter who was taken away from the McCready family when her mother moved her to Chicago and remarried when Margot was just a toddler. In the prior novella, we hear about Uncle Stan whose wife and daughter left him years ago because of his drinking.

Margot is a very successful event planner until one disasterous event takes Margot from future partner to unemployed before you can say “shrimp tower.” Especially when seaching YouTube for flamingo fails gets your video 100K hits. Margot is about to lose her apartment and shockingly, no one is taking her job requests seriously. Things can’t get worse when she gets a call from her previously known Aunt Tootie offering her a job, medical benefits and a place to live. Only problem is that Margot needs to move to some place called Lake Sackett, Georgia. With no other opportunities, Margot takes the leap, if only temporary, to meet her family.

While Margot keeps informing everyone that her move to Lake Sackett is temporary, but with no real friends or family to miss in her old life, the fun she is having getting to know her cousins and the laid-back lifestyle by the lake are slowly getting under Margot’s skin. Until she, again reluctantly, agrees to help with the big Founders Day event which is coming up. The lake’s level is at an all-time low and the small town has lost a lot of their much needed summertime vacationers. The small businesses are starting to suffer all over town so guilt wins out over Margot’s desire to beat feet out of town.

Of course, there is romance to be found in any good Molly Harper novel. I really enjoyed first having Margot meet Kyle, a man at first look appears to Margot to be a brooding lumberjack. And after a few glasses of moonshine while out with her cousins, Margot ends up in a make-out session with her lumberjack, who is suddenly not so brooding as he is hot, which comes to an abrupt halt when Margot’s alcohol-fogged brain comes to realize she might just be making out with an unknown cousin and skedaddles. She is happy to find out that there is no family relationship between them but even more surprised to find out that Kyle is less lumberjack and more school principal.

At the start of the story, Kyle and Margot are fun, flirty and sexy. After we find out that hot Kyle is actually daddy Kyle with two little girls, things start to get awkward between them. Although Kyle wife’s died five years ago, he gets very awkward with Margot, especially around his girls. I understand the principal of not wanting to introduce your kids to many women who come and go from your life, but it got so uncomfortable especially in a scene where his deceased wife’s parents show up at the house and Kyle scoots Margot out of the house like he was caught naked and having an affair while his wife is on her deathbed. His wife is dead five years and he lives like a monk. It isn’t so horrible to spend time with a nice woman.

I would have enjoyed the romance a bit more it is just flowed naturally without them trying to avoid labeling it and without Margot screaming that she was leaving town anytime she spent a few minutes with Kyle and his girls and Kyle then acting like spending time with Margot was a dirty secret. In the parts where the uncomfortable feelings were turned down, Kyle and Margot had magic and you could see why he let her in while not finding anyone interesting enough in the years since his wife’s death. I mean, hot, employed, non-related man in a small town would normally draw a lot of attention. It became a little wearisome when all the later nice moments between Kyle and Margot get jerked to an abrupt halt whenever things started turning sweet.

I am looking forward to the next story which features cousin Frankie who stepped up as mortician for the family. She has her own unique style and sense of humor and I hope her sunny disposition stays upbeat in the next novel against the grumpy, new sheriff in town.

Am drawn to family sages and enjoyed this one. Had a little trouble keeping the characters straight, maybe because they were all eccentric! Couldn't ask for more if a cozy read with just enough spice to keep things moving is your cup of (sweet) tea :)

I really enjoyed this book! Quirky and fun with just a little drama mixed in, this was a quick, light read.
I am looking forward to reading other books in this series!

I made it through 46% of this book before I decided to give up. I found that at this point, I still had no interest in the main character or her family issues. There were way too many characters to keep straight, and nearly halfway through the book it was still hard to figure out who everyone was and what their purpose was exactly. I felt that there were too many superfluous characters without a plot, there were just 'there'.

The plot didn't seem to be going anywhere, either. All that had really happened was the main character still hating her weird family, and she kept running into a guy and making a fool of herself. Nonetheless, it wasn't enough to keep me interested and I had to put it down.

Stevie‘s review of Sweet Tea and Sympathy (Southern Eclectic, Book 1) by Molly Harper
Contemporary Romance published by Gallery Books 21 Nov 17

Small-town romance series are a bit hit or miss for me, but I keep coming back to them in the hope of finding one where the quirky nature of the locals is matched by a strongly characterised central pairing. The trope generally follows the pattern where either an outsider moves to the town through some accident of fate or recently discovered connection or where a former resident returns after a long absence. Either way, part of the fun is seeing the newcomer settle (back) in and (re)acquaint themselves with the locals and their odd traditions. In the case of this particular opener to a new series, the heroine is returning to the bosom of the long-lost family she’d all but forgotten about after her big-city career implodes spectacularly.


Margot Cary is an event planner, who fully expects to receive a long anticipated promotion following her next successful gala: so much so that she’s made plans to move into a more upmarket home and given notice on her current place. A mix-up with the catering and some unruly wildlife, however, lead to Margot losing both her job and her new mortgage. News of the disaster spreads rapidly, and it seems that no firm is prepared to take her on, until she receives a call from her long-estranged great-aunt who wants her to move back to her father’s hometown and join the family business. Although Margot hasn’t seen her father or his family since she was a toddler, she reluctantly accepts the job as a short-term measure and heads down to Lake Sackett, Georgia: home to the McCready Family Funeral Home and Bait Shop.

The McCready family are a wonderful bunch of eccentrics, not that Margot appreciates them much at first, as are their neighbours. The town itself is in rather a decline, ever since the main tourist attraction fell victim to a manmade disaster. Soon, though, Margot is joining in with the townsfolk’s plans to put on a festival that will reinvigorate the town’s reputation, helped in no small part by her attraction to the school principal, Kyle Archer: a widower with two young daughters.

Much as I loved some of the quirky characters in this story, others felt a little too out-there, with feuds between neighbours that had little backstory but served to keep Margot busy trying to sort things out. I also felt that her romance with Kyle felt a little forced, and really couldn’t see the pair of them lasting in the long run.

All in all, a fairly average example of the genre that doesn’t really encourage me to get excited about the next in the series.

Grade: C

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a very nice change of pace for me. I read so many mystery & suspense stories that I feel I need to read some women's fiction just to keep me human.

This one certainly fit the bill. There was some humor regarding a huge shrimp tower and flamingoes or peacocks. (I read this two weeks ago! Ha!!) There were also several other moments I found humorous. The idea of a funeral home and a bait shop put together made for even more humorous moments.

If your into light romance, no sex scenes and a really cute (not in a bad way) read. My first book by this author and not my last.

Thanks to Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

Back in October I reviewed Save a Truck, Ride a Redneck (great title, no?), you can see that review here, and immediately fell in love with the McCready family. They are a family of eccentrics–or is that normals?–each of whom touches you in a different way.

In Sweet Tea and Sympathy we’re introduced to Margot, the estranged daughter of former alcoholic Stan McCready, the family’s sad sack. The opening scene shows Margot, a Chicago party planner, trying to salvage a charity function after a faux Parisian chef decides to serve shrimp, although the hostess is deadly allergic to shellfish. There are flamingos diving for shrimp, parrots being upset, flames, and the end of Margot’s Chicago party planning career. And that’s just the beginning of this humorous women’s fiction novel by Molly Harper.

Aunt Tootie, a blue-eyed, silver-haired computer demon, invites Margot to come home, offering a job with all of the benefits just as Margot is about to be homeless. Given no other choice, Margot accepts. She is the proverbial fish-out-of-water, but because she’s stubborn, a trait given to her from her father, she survives and flourishes.

Once in Lake Sackett, Margot bumps into a towering, depressed-looking man, not once, but twice. The second time she ends up in his pick-up truck kissing the living daylights out of him, until a text reminds her that she had been in the bar with her cousins, and, well, oops, this isn’t good behavior.

That scene, with Margot and, who we eventually come to know is Kyle, a single dad whose wife died of cancer years earlier, is hot even though it never comes to fruition. Harper has a way of making a scene scorching even though it isn’t a full-fledged sex scene. That, my friends, is talent.

Margot learns a lot about herself, her dead mother, and her father as she navigates unfamiliar terrain. She becomes absorbed into the McCready family and realizes what she has been missing her entire life. Is this something she is willing to give up?

I loved this novel and had to stop myself several times, once at 2 am, and then again today so that I didn’t read it all in one go, because, for me, this is just the kind of novel that I want to devour and yet, also, never want to end. It’s snarky and sweet and filled with love for its characters and the town they live in. But, it doesn’t look through rose-colored glasses. People have fears and issues and feel ever-so-human and I think that’s what makes it work. You fall in love with these characters because they seem so real and accessible. They are funny and loyal and amazing.

If you are a fan of a feel good, funny, romantic novel, give this one a try. You don’t need to read Save a Truck, Ride a Redneck in order to enjoy Sweet Tea and Sympathy, but I suggest you give it a go anyway because it is also wonderful. This is more of a relationship novel than a romance, meaning that it encompasses all kinds of relationships, familial and romantic. I’m not sure I can recommend it enough.

I received an ARC, for which I’m very grateful, in exchange for an honest review.