Albama, 1956: While Elvis Presley was singing about love, one young woman was learning all about life. Everyone loves Maggie Deloach, one of the most popular girls on campus with everything going for her: an impeccable lineage; picture-perfect looks; the best sorority, and the handsomest fraternity boy's pin on her sweater. The ultimate Southern belle, Maggie knows what the rules are and is willing to play by them. No surprises are waiting in her future - but neither are any disappointments.

Then, amid the stifling heat of a single Alabama summer, everything changes. There are rumors of a racial revolution brewing, one that surely should not touch Maggie's protected world...yet somehow does. There is growing sexual awareness that she knows should shock her...yet does not. There is a single act of defiance and courage that will forever alter the way others think of her...and how Maggie thinks of herself.

I must say, that while Heartbreak Hotel by Anne Rivers Siddons picked up slightly towards the end of the book, it wasn't the best book by one of my favorite authors - Anne Rivers Siddons - that I've ever read. Maybe it has something to do with this being her debut novel, but I found Heartbreak Hotel to be somewhat over-written and over-worked, full of adjectives and convoluted sentences that ultimately made reading this book rather difficult for me. To me, this book was somewhat disappointing, as I know what this author is capable of.

I will certainly read more from Anne Rivers Siddons in the future, as she appears to have really hit her stride as an author with her later books, however I had to give this debut novel a B+! ( )

Margaret Deloach (Maggie to her friends) is a good girl, a good, smart Southern girl who has everything going for her. She is popular and beautiful, a sister in the Kappa sorority and pinned to the ever handsome Boots Claiborne. Much is made of Maggie's looks, her clothing, her sense of style. It isn't until Maggie meets Hoyt Cunningham, a childhood friend of Boot's, that Maggie's moral compass and intelligence is exposed. Everything comes to a head when Maggie witnesses the brutal recapture of a black inmate from the county jail. Heartbreak Hotel is a coming of age story set in the Civil Rights era South. It is lush with description, brimming with trouble. It is easy to see why it was a New York Times best seller. ( )

Apparently this book is the first one for author Anne Rivers Siddons. The story focuses on Maggie Deloach as she returns for the summer term before her senior year at a small southern white college in 1956. The weather is hot and steamy and Elvis is hitting his stride. Maggie is the stereotypical popular sorority girl on campus—excelling in her classes but expecting to receive her “Mrs.” along with her degree. A visit to her boyfriend’s plantation home introduces her to a life even more steeped in tradition and drawn racial lines than her own. While there a jailbreak takes place. When one of the captured men is brought back to town, Maggie finds herself looking into the eyes of the prisoner and seeing herself.

I’ve read and enjoyed many of Ms. Siddons’ southern literature books and this one was no exception. Having been in a college sorority in the 1960’s, I also found some of the discussions of sorority life to be quite familiar. ( )

civil rights era and college girl Maggie is naive and learning. Writes an editorial that causes flap among college and Boots, her southern racist boyfriend. Has some college folks who enlighten her and lead her.....Aiken, Hoyt. Easy story ( )

this book was terrible. ( )