Showing results by author "Daphne Simpkins" in All Categories

Always a bride's maid--never a bride. That's part of the story of the life of Mildred Budge in this third novel in the series. But there is more to know about this Sunday School teacher who has been recruited to be a maid of honor for her good friend's wedding. As someone who has routinely had to muzzle herself at weddings by not calling out when the preacher asks if anyone knows a reason these two should not be wed, "It's not going to work out," this new role of supporting the bride has its challenges for this church lady of the South, Mildred Budge. But being a bride's maid also has its ...

When a church lady falls in love, she falls hard. Sometimes she lands on her knees. Miss Budge does as she moves quietly and powerfully through her daily life in Old Cloverdale, where F. Scott Fitzgerald once courted Zelda, and two miles away Nat King Cole was born. Fitzgerald wrote about love. Nat Cole sang about love, and Mildred Budge knows those words. She can sing along with Nat and has. But Miss Budge lives love too—is always in love. The world wants a certain kind of love. Miss Budge offers a different kind—one that is so rare, so foreign as to be misunderstood…. But make no ...

“Don’t you ever want to run away from Christmas?” Mildred Budge’s answer to Dixie was immediate and truthful. “Yes, yes, yes,” Mildred said with conviction. She couldn’t stop saying yes, though the very idea that a good church lady would want to run away from the occasion during the year that marked the birth of Jesus-- the reason for the season for a tried and true church lady of the South-- was almost beyond explanation. “Then, let’s go. Let’s go to Fountain City and find Mr. Fixit and eat sublime pies,” her friend Dixie urged. The two needed Mr. Fixit because of a ...

From the author of Lovejoy and Blessed comes a series about church ladies of the South. After reading this first novel in the series, fans of Southern fiction write, "I want to live next door to Mildred Budge." A retired school teacher, Mildred Budge just wants to live a quiet life in her hometown of Cloverdale. But retirement does not mean she can say no to a friend--not a friend in trouble. Mildred Budge knows how. A disciplined woman, Mildred can breathe the word "no" to a second cup of ice cream. Can resist drinking too much champagne. But when it comes right down to a friend needing a ...

When the car sailed over the embankment carrying the four members of the pulpit committee, Mildred Budge called out, “Jesus saves.” The others heard it, but they were also experiencing their own quick flashes of insight. Liz, a serial widow, felt unsatisfied with her life. She wanted more. Sailing toward her death, she still did. Sam, who had turned the steering wheel that had sent them over the embankment, was looking forward to the crash. He wanted to feel it—the hard slam of collision. His hands held the wheel tightly, bracing for it. Jake smiled. He resisted holding Mildred’s ...

When Eugenia Wren retired from her job teaching air force officers how to write a business memo, she chose to downsize and move to a fish camp because when she looked out from cabin number 6, the rolling river was a better view than what she saw flashing by a computer screen. A linguist by vocation, Dr. Wren had spent a good portion of her life staring at a screen, and she wanted to see the world differently. The sight of the water calmed her, and she chose that feeling of unhurried calm over the hurried pushing of fast-moving images on a computer screen. It took her body a while to adjust ...

Mildred Budge returns in Kingdom Come, a story about setbacks and how to face them. The fourth novel in the series, Kingdom Come, continues with the stories of Mildred, Fran, Winston, Janie, and Chase. In this story, Mildred’s Cloverdale bungalow is crowded. Her best friend Fran observes, “For a single woman, Mildred, your quiver is getting very full.” And it is. There is little room in Mildred’s Cloverdale bungalow for solitude and extended prayer, and Mildred Budge needs both. Many people do. And it is harder to find that kind of quiet in a world where background noise is as ...

From the author of the popular Mildred Budge church lady books comes a brand-new spin-off series featuring the friends of Mildred Budge and how they see the same world Miss Budge inhabits—and her, too. In Belle, the first book in the new series, friends of Mildred Budge see life in Cloverdale through the eyes of Belle Deerborn. Belle Deerborn lives next door to Mildred Budge. The Deerborn house is across and open field, and Belle sits out on her back stoop each morning reading her Bible and also watching Mildred live and the people who come and go. Others see Belle as living a confined ...

What do church ladies really think? Composed and often so quiet as to be thought invisible, church ladies have secret powers to change the world. What are those special powers? They love well. They give well. They can often cook! And they play an essential role in a great rescue operation for mankind. For although they appear to have Ninja warrior strengths (and can be invisible!), they are helpers to the only Superhero who ever really saved the world and mankind. They know His name and will tell you. And they can show you what it's like to brought to life and empowered to love instead of ...

Do you brace for Christmas and the energy it requires to meet the social demands? At the same time do you long for that elusive Christmas spirit that brings refreshment and satisfaction? You will find amusement and nostalgia in your favorite Christmas movies. You will enjoy singing along with your favorite characters about a white Christmas and love. But the Christmas spirit your soul craves is found in the story of a babe born in a stable. The story of the Christ child being born in squalor and what his life means for people everywhere is the story that will bring you the Christmas spirit ...

When Clark Kent stepped into the glass phone booth, we knew he was about to emerge as Superman. That transformation happened every time. Then, he used his superpowers to rescue people in distress, leaping over tall buildings in a single bound and flying faster than a speeding bullet. That spinning around in the phone booth was mesmerizing. And, in a way, that blur of change that we recognized as transformation from one kind of person to a stronger kind of person is the kind of change I am writing about in this series of books about popular culture creators of the 20th century. As popular ...

Each Christmas retired chemistry teacher Edwina Bopp makes her newest invention of miracle fudge as a fundraiser for missions in her small Southern town Fountain City. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the good lady cooks through the night and then gives the candy away to the fudge-hungry group of people who know this year's newest recipe is coming and line up in front of her store before she ever opens the door of her Main Street candy shop. People receive their portion of this year's fudge and place donations for missions in her jar on the counter, expecting miracles. Some miracles have...

These love stories have other names. Mothering. Fathering. Befriending. Comforting. Helping. And, yes, holding on while letting go. For loving others is often as much about letting go as holding on—and never too tightly. If you are looking for a self-help book about caregiving, this isn’t it. But if you are interested in a thoughtful exploration of tending, taking care, and letting go of the need to attach other labels to stories about love, then you will enjoy this tender and uplifting collection of true stories written by a member of a big sprawling Southern family who knows how to ...

When my claustrophobic sister Julie Ann and her down-in-the-back husband Jody were trapped on a stalled elevator in a posh hotel, they were not alone in their distress. Two young male execs were with them. As soon as the elevator lurched heart-stoppingly close to a place near a floor level, the two young men were able to wedge open the elevator door just enough to squeeze up and through. The two executives escaped, leaving behind my sister-- a grandmother-- and her husband Jody, her hero. I heard later from my sister that, “Jody couldn’t believe his eyes--two young men leaving me behind...

Did you know that history is being rewritten in your neighborhood? And it’s happening in surprising ways. People without dementia are taking care of people who have dementia. And they are experiencing that time differently and telling those stories differently than they were initially told over twenty years ago when the subject began to grab the national consciousness. Inside neighborhood homes traditions and long-held opinions are being questioned. Minds are being changed and lives improved because of the shift in thinking about dementia care and how to react to the diagnosis that ...

From the author of the popular Mildred Budge series comes a new kind of love story about a different kind of Southern church lady. Franklin Lovejoy is an attractive, eligible widower, and the church is full of ladies who want to sit beside him. They crawl over pews and one another to get to him. For some it is a form of Sunday morning entertainment. Lovejoy enjoys the company of a variety women, and he is amused by his widespread appeal. That doesn’t mean he is immune to the consequences of a deep attraction between himself and a mature Southern church lady who has a reputation for being ...

I grew up in a family where we wrote one another love letters. We put them on pillows, in lunch bags, by bedsides. So it was only natural that when my niece Katie asked me to compile some family recipes for her upon the occasion of her marriage that I would place those recipes alongside all the love letters I had been wanting to write and had written in the form of essays that were published in a variety of magazines and newspaper periodicals before their decline. Eating supper hasn’t declined, however, and love letters to brides and nieces have a kind of perennial value if not to the ...