The Red Hat Society's Acting Their Age

Starred review from December 15, 2005
The Red Hat Society has become a self-proclaimed "vast women's movement," and they do seem to be ubiquitous. Celebrating women 50 and older, their logo is on a plethora of products, and now they have their first "official" novel. When widowed Mia MacAfee finds Rachel, an abused, runaway teen, hiding in her bakery shop, she and her friends, Aggie Cobb and Leanne Chilton, decide to conceal the girl so she doesn't have to return to the foster system. Cade Sloan, sheriff of Muddy Creek, Texas, is interested in Mia, and he is looking for the runaway. With her newly bizarre behavior, Mia has become his number-one suspect. As Cade tries to get Mia to fess up, Leanne's and Aggie's husbands begin to worry that their often-absent wives are stepping out on them. Lots of humor fills the pages of this heartwarming novel. With characters so familiar you feel as though you know them and a small town so real you feel as though you've been there, Sutherland's book is a bang-up tale about women over 50, and the men who love them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)