Review: Miss Dreamsville

Title: Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society
Author: Amy Hill Hearth
Genre: Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction


See it at Goodreads


In 1962, Jackie Hart moved to Naples, Florida, from Boston with her husband and children. Wanting something personally fulfilling to do with her time, she starts a reading club and anonymously hosts a radio show, calling herself Miss Dreamsville.

The racially segregated town falls in love with Miss Dreamsville, but doesn’t know what to make of Jackie, who welcomes everyone into her book club, including a woman who did prison time for allegedly killing her husband, a man of questionable sexual preference, a young divorcee, as well as a black woman.

By the end of this novel, you’ll be wiping away the tears of laugher and sadness, and you just may become a bit more hopeful that even the most hateful people can see the light of humanitarianism, if they just give themselves a chance.



This title is a doozy. Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women’s Literary Society.

Well, from here, I’ll just refer it to Miss Dreamsville so I don’t have to keep typing that one out. Haha.

This review is actually going to be a bit on the short side. I don’t have much to say in the way of it being great or it being bad. It was average at best for me. Then again, I don’t read a lot in the way of adult literary fiction--but I did find this one surprisingly charming.

Miss Dreamsville touches on the issues that were the big struggles of that time period--and still even today in many cases--and has a cast full of quirky and interesting characters with their own personalities. My problem was that I found it to be on the short side and while it’s not a normal complaint, I think in this instance, it really should have been longer to give the story more of the depth it deserved. I sometimes found it to be bland in places, causing me to lose interest a few times, but the overall story was entertaining and enjoyable.

And it features a book club. So, of course I found a connection with that. ;)

I have a feeling this one will appeal to a wide audience.