Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

In Beth Brookhart's The Four Queens of the Buttonbush Museum, Irene Pickett joins the board of the Buttonbush Museum after losing her newspaper role, stepping into a neglected area where Odilia Delgado is already using her political access to secure control. Their opposing decisions drive the museum’s direction as Irene holds public events to bring people in while Odilia commits funds to move the Iversen ranch house, a move that triggers a legal claim once the building is already in transit. When Betty and Maye Marie join them, the four women become known as the Four Queens and take over daily operations while county officials begin formal steps to claim the land for a courthouse. The museum now stands on land marked for removal, and the Four Queens are the only ones left trying to stop it.

Beth Brookhart’s The Four Queens of the Buttonbush Museum is a fantastic story of women banding together to save a regional heritage site in mid-twentieth-century America. The attention to 1950s period detail is off-the-charts brilliant. Irene’s reenactment of Paul Revere with staged patriotism perfectly mirrors postwar civic displays, while the Parker Hills Country Club is a nod to the mainstay of American suburbia of the time, replete with dress codes, formal luncheons, and social hierarchy. The characters are all fully fleshed out, but Odilia is the one I found most fascinating. She has a shady past, but there's a mafiosa slickness in how she leverages what and who she knows, which plays out fabulously when a local businessman is called upon for cash. The settings are near cinematic in how they are portrayed, from The Blue Bonnet Saloon with its swinging doors, scarred bar top, and small stage where patrons once gathered, to the Edwards House interior with a grandfather clock that hides its own secrets. Readers who adore immersive women's fiction with a great cast of powerhouse ladies will love this book. Very highly recommended.