Rebecca Wells's wonderful third book in her Ya-Ya trilogy, which includes Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, is sure to provide reading that makes you laugh and cry, a book that will break your heart and mend it again.

Ya-Yas in Bloom reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s, following Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets.

When four-year-old Teensy Whitman prisses one time too many and stuffs a big old pecan up her nose, she sets off the chain of events that lead Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie to become true sister-friends. Using as narration the alternating voices of Vivi and the Petite Ya-Yas, Siddalee and Baylor Walker, as well as other denizens of Thornton, Louisiana, Wells show us the Ya-Yas in love and at war with convention. Through crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style, and Louisiana sass shine through.

But in the Ya-Yas' inimitable way, these four remarkable women also teach their children about the Mysteries: the wonder of snow in the deep South, the possibility that humans are made of stars, and the belief that miracles do happen. And they need a miracle when old grudges and wounded psyches lead to a heartbreaking crime...and the dynamic web of sisterhood is the only safety net strong enough to hold families together and endure.

After two bestsellers and a blockbuster movie, the Ya-Yas have become part of American culture -- icons for the power of women's friendship. Ya-Yas in Bloom continues the saga, giving us more Ya-Ya lore, spun out in the rich patois of the Louisiana bayou country and brim full of the Ya-Ya message to embrace life and each other with joy.

The Ya-Ya sisters shimmy on and off stage in this disjointed follow-up to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Wells's bestselling novel about the singular friendship and escapades of four larger-than-life Southern women. The author is off to a good start with the tale of how Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie met as little girls in 1930, their spunk and liveliness a harbinger of things to come. But the focus on the Ya-Yas' early years soon wavers and the novel is all over the map-here a few tales about the grown-up Ya-Yas, like Vivi's run-in with her son's first-grade teacher, a pompous nun; there a story about Vivi's eldest daughter, Sidda, one of the so-called "Petites Ya-Yas," and her directorial debut at age eight at a Valentine's Day party. A chapter appears out of nowhere from the viewpoint of Myrtis Spevey, a contemporary of the original Ya-Yas, who is so excessively jealous and resentful of the friends that she comes off as a cartoon character. After a vexing 30-year leap, Myrtis's creepy, emotionally ill daughter, Edythe, takes over the narrative, kidnapping one of the Ya-Yas' grandchildren. What begins as a collection of haphazard but entertaining snippets from the Ya-Yas' lives suddenly bumps up against a sober story about a missing child and the lengths to which parents will go to protect their young. Readers may lose patience as even the loose family-album format fails to hold up, but Wells still charms when she focuses on the redemptive power of family love and the special bond that comes from genuine, long-lived friendship. Agent, Kim Witherspoon. (One-day laydown Mar. 29) Forecast: Flaws aside, this has a chance at #1, though it may not stick at the top of the lists as long as Divine Secrets. Major ad/promo. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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