Books We Wish Were Movies: Miss Susie's Top Three

Have you noticed the Books We Wish Were Movies tab up there just above this post? 5th tab on the right? Yes, that's it. That's where I've stashed the 5 books I personally pine to see on film: The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, The Lion is In by Delia Ephron, The World Without You by Joshua Henkins, The Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows and Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter.

But I got to thinking, why should I have all the fun? So I sent out a tweet, asking what books you'd like to see on film. Miss Susie of Miss Susie's Reading and Observations got back to me with her top three choices: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman, Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler and the Bloody Jack series of books by L.A. Meyer. I asked Susie — a librarian, audiophile and reviewer for Audiobookjukebox, netgalley and edelweiss — what she loved about these books in particular and why she wanted to see them as movies. You'll find her answers on the Books We Wish Were Movies page, right below mine. Hey, it is my site, after all! But I'd love to make this a regular feature and add your wish list to Suzie's and mine, if you'd care to play along. 

First though, let's take a closer look at the books Miss Susie chose. They're three very different sounding stories; I'm looking forward to reading both Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and Calling Me Home myself, while the Bloody Jack series sounds like it could be the start of a whole new franchise featuring a really strong young female lead ala Twilight, Hunger Games and Divergent.

Here's the lowdown on the books from Barnes and Noble.

Steel Magnolias meets The Help in Beth Hoffman’s New York Times bestselling Southern debut novel, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. 

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her mother, Camille, the town’s tiara-wearing, lipstick-smeared laughingstock, a woman who is trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen of Georgia. When tragedy strikes, Tootie Caldwell, CeeCee’s long-lost great-aunt, comes to the rescue and whisks her away to Savannah. There, CeeCee is catapulted into a perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity—one that appears to be run entirely by strong, wacky women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons; to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones; to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer. 

A timeless coming of age novel set in the 1960s, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship, and charts the journey of an unforgettable girl who loses one mother, but finds many others in the storybook city of Savannah. As Kristin Hannah, author of Fly Away, says, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is “packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart."

A National Best Seller! 

Calling Me Home by Julie Kibler is a soaring debut interweaving the story of a heartbreaking, forbidden love in 1930s Kentucky with an unlikely modern-day friendship
Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser Dorrie Curtis. It's a big one. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mom in her thirties, to drop everything to drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati. With no clear explanation why. Tomorrow. 

Dorrie, fleeing problems of her own and curious whether she can unlock the secrets of Isabelle's guarded past, scarcely hesitates before agreeing, not knowing it will be a journey that changes both their lives. 

Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship. They are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son’s irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her.
Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper—in a town where blacks weren’t allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

Bloody Jack is the first of L.A. Meyer's popular book series — over a dozen books so far, do I see boatloads of sequels? —about a young girl who dresses as a boy to survive as a sailor on the high seas. 

Life as a ship's boy aboard HMS Dolphin is a dream come true for Jacky Faber. Gone are the days of scavenging for food and fighting for survival on the streets of eighteenth-century London. Instead, Jacky is becoming a skilled and respected sailor as the crew pursues pirates on the high seas.
There's only one problem: Jacky is a girl. And she will have to use every bit of her spirit, wit, and courage to keep the crew from discovering her secret. This could be the adventure of her life--if only she doesn't get caught. . . .
Reduced to begging and thievery in the streets of London, a thirteen-year-old orphan disguises herself as a boy and connives her way onto a British warship set for high sea adventure in search of pirates.