No surprise to learn from a bio of Mindy Friddle that, like another writer from the same neck of the woods, Pat Conroy, she hails from the Carolinas. No surprise because fictitious Haven, S.C., is the locale for her latest novel, “Her Best Self,” in which the protagonist, Janelle Wolf, is striving to remember the details of an auto accident from 30 years before that injured her badly and robbed her of her memory of events surrounding what happened.
Helping Janelle in that effort – or so she thinks – is Lana, a self-professed spiritual midwife for whom Janelle’s best interests may not be foremost and indeed whom Janelle’s husband, Charles, is singularly put out with – he thinks she’s an out-and-out fraud – at a time when he’s preoccupied with rebranding the family business.
Also preoccupying him is the upcoming marriage of his daughter, Mira, who it develops has been having a fling with the son of Charles’ now-deceased business partner. Indeed, it’s that affair that was the occasion for a particularly cringeworthy moment of realization for me that had me wondering if I’d understood correctly only to learn that, yes, I had understood correctly. So cringeworthy, indeed, is the situation that author Friddle notes in her bio that the “winks of humor” in the novel were intended to leaven the novel's “ominous backbeat,” as she puts it. To my mind, though, the “winks” keep the novel from realizing its fullest potential in the grand Gothic Southern tradition. Also, contrary to the opinion of another reviewer, I found a postscript superfluous.
But each writer has to dance to his or her own tune and it will be interesting to me to see what Friddle comes up with next, particularly with how, like her and Conroy, I’m a military brat whose stops included nearby states Georgia and Kentucky.

The story flowed well and the characters were well developed. I recommend this book and look forward to more from this author.


****Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review****