Little Black Dress    by Susan McBride Order:  USA  Can William Morrow, 2011 (2011) Softcover, e-Book     Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth Susan McBride's Little Black Dress is a magical novel centering on the predictions of a little black dress. Antonia Ashton, a wedding planner living in Missouri, receives a phone call destined to change the life she has spent decades building. Her mother Evie has had a stroke and is in a medically induced coma until her brain can heal. Naturally, Toni rushes to her mother's side, talking to her, hoping a familiar voice will bring her around. While Toni frets over her mother's condition, she reflects on why she left home in the first place. Smothered. She felt smothered and needed to strike out on her own. Become independent. The more time she spends in her mother's home, the more Toni realizes what she has left behind - including the little black dress, bought from a gypsy woman many years before. Absurdly, the dress fits whoever dons it. The real magic comes when the woman wearing the dress sees her future as well! The glimpse of what is in store controls the viewer's next actions. This little book, told in chapters by Toni or her mother Evie, is hard to put down. We travel the roads of life that Toni and Evie travel. The dress is not always kind. But is always right. While we, the readers, don't have little black dresses – or, at least, I don't – we have to make our own decisions in life. Good or bad, they are ours and we must accept the consequences. This treasure of a story will make you look at your own relationships and where they possibly went wrong. Or what made them right. Little Black Dress is a very good read. Just be sure you have some time after finishing the book to contemplate your own life. It's not too late to mend fences. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Contemporary books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews