Becky's Great Book Reviews All the Little Houses by May Cobb

If you're hankering for a soapy, scandalous, easy read, All the Little Houses by May Cobb will fit the bill. Aligning with Cobb's general style, her newest novel puts bad behavior right up there in importance with plot and character.

1980's Smalltown Texas: picture big hair, Madonna gloves and and neon. The story features competing Queen Bees and social climbers, adults and teens alike. Told from alternating points of view, readers get the lenses from both the superrich and the poor.

Charleigh, one of the main characters, comes from poverty but is now ultra-rich because of her husband. Her one daughter Nellie is spoiled, a misfit and sociopathic; Charleigh is determined to control all aspects of Nellie's life so she gets what she wants. Interior designer Jackson is Charleigh's best friend and is subjected to Charleigh's constant demands and neediness.

Jane and her family have just moved into the poor side of town to try and make a go of her father's furniture-making business. Jane's secret boyfriend Luke soon follows under the ruse of learning the trade from Jane's dad, even though it's really so Jane and Luke can be together. Readers also learn that Jane's family is not what they seem.

This tangled web of relationships amongst the adults and teens form the basis for secret, forbidden relationships, deceptions, and yes, murder. The big question of the murder gets tidied up at the end in a juicy, surprising way but there's one big plot point (and other littler ones) that leaves readers hanging. In "a conversation with the author" at the end, May Cobb reveals there is a sequel coming - thank you, because this reader was feeling cheated!

In the acknowledgements, May Cobb states that she's always been fascinated by characters whose moral compasses are skewed. This is part of what makes her novels compelling. Reading All the Little Houses felt like watching Dallas, Dynasty and 90210 wrapped up in one. Great literature this is not, but great fun it is. I give May Cobb's salacious new novel three and a half stars out of five and I will be reading the sequel.