Secret Sisters - Tristi Pinkston

Summary:  Ida Mae Babbitt, president of the Omni 2nd Ward Relief Society, didn't mean to become a spy.  But when visiting teaching stats are low, and she learns that one family under her care is in financial trouble, she'll do whatever it takes to make sure they have what they need.  If that includes planting surveillance cameras in their home and watching them from a parked car in the woods...well, isn't that what any caring Relief Society president would do?

With the help of her counselors, Arlette and Tansy, Ida Mae soon learns there's more to the situation than meets the eye.

But it's all in a day's work for the Relief Society.  (Summary from back of the book, book given free for review and image from http://cranberryfries.blogspot.com/2010/04/secret-sisters-review.html)

My Review:  I'm always wary of literature written for and aimed at the LDS population.  The audience is so narrow and the topic so specific that unless you're LDS you probably won't enjoy the book and often it can lack real depth. 

While this book falls into the "LDS" category, there was much that I enjoyed and it contained more depth than others in the genre.  This is probably the first LDS lit I've read that had so much wit.  Ida Mae is a great character and such a spunky old gal that I almost felt like I was listening to my own inner dialog while reading.  She's constantly seeing the puns in life, saying and connecting them to situations, but without the dorky "did you get that?" line you typically see.  She enjoyed her own humor and the way it was written the reader can too.  She also kept her judgmental side in check, which was refreshing.

The story line was quite intriguing.  I was truly curious to see how the sneaking around would come back to bite them and it did.  Nice.  So often you see people get off the hook for doing something wrong even if it's for the right reasons.  And in real life, that's not always the case.  The story was going really well and I enjoyed the ending, though it was a tad cliched and the frying-pan scene was a bit of a let down.  It wasn't very realistic, at least for me.  

Overall, I honestly enjoyed the book and was glad to have a chance to get to know Ida Mae and her quirky Relief Society presidency.  (It painted a very realistic picture of what a Relief Society President does for her ward on a daily basis.)

My Rating: 4 stars

Sum it up: A quirky read for a female LDS audience.