It’s guess Gwen’s favorite Colleen McCullough book time! The Thorns Birds? Nope, but it was the first McCullough I ever read and ugh that horrid Meggie creature, but that’s another post entirely! Masters of Rome series? Pretty awesome but Robert Graves (I, Claudius and Claudius the God) is my fictional Ancient Rome crack.

Maybe you should, oh, read the title of the blog post? Ladies of Miss Bong Gee? Seriously that’s what Blacklight thought the book was called. Sorry, Blacklight, but it’s The Ladies of Missalonghi.

Issued as part of the Harper Short Novel series, The Ladies of Missalonghi is what TVTropes.org calls “What It Says On The Tin”. Three ladies, sisters Octavia and Drusilla and Drusilla’s plain spinster daughter Missy spend their days eking out a bare existence on five acres of poor land with almost no money and doing busywork.

Now mind you, the ladies of Missalonghi (the name of their house)  are directly related to the big wigs of Byron, Australia but since they’re single/widowed women with no great fortunes of their own, they’re on the outskirts of everything. They’re patronized by their rich married sisters/aunts and out right cheated and swindled by their male relatives. Trust me, the Hurlingford males are total assholes.

Read The Ladies of Missalonghi and try to think of one Hurlingford male you don’t want to punch right in the face or lower horn (thanks Futurama!) Fine, there is Uncle Pervical who lets his Missalonghi relations have use of his bull for stud service at no charge, has a kind wife and gives the young Missy a kitten but that kind man doesn’t realize how narrow life is at Missalonghi and the kitten’s fate. All the other Hurlingford males…frosted pop tart them!

Even with their restrained lives, each of the Missalonghi ladies has something to comfort her and for Missy, it’s books from the private lending library. Hmmm, throwing yourself into books as a comfort, that doesn’t sound familiar at all (zip it Blacklight, I mean it).

Missy’s books are truly a lifeline. Thanks to those books, Missy gets to meet the dazzling Una, a black sheep family member from the big city. Una, a total siren blonde babe stuck in the backwaters of Byron, turns Missy’s life upside down. Our little brown wren stands up for herself, delivers verbal bitch slaps to her detested cousin Alicia, upsets the economical and social order of Byron and snags herself a man.

Yes, it’s a Cinderella story but dang it, Missy and her change in fortunes isn’t cloying or twee or Mary Sue Bella (thanks TVTropes.org!) vomity. Missy reaches into herself and says “frosted pop tart it”. She’s willing to throw aside everything pounded into her by her mother, her aunt and Byron society. And I say, go girl go, git yours, git it girl. Wear that scarlet lace dress! Read them scandal trash books! Eat that chicken you bitch (Thanks RuPaul’s Drag Race!)And at the end, the twist re Missy’s change of fortune is pretty obvious by the second read, isn’t a total downer. Because you know that Missy is clever enough to deal with the outcome whatever happens. Missalonghi Wright Smith has got brains and balls.