Chicken-Fried Women: Friendship, Kinship, and the Women Who Made Us This Way

From the bestselling author of Eat Cake. Be Brave, a love letter to the strong, opinionated Southern women who raised her and surround us all.

Lucy and Ethel. Laverne and Shirley. Dorothy, Sophia, Blanche, and Rose. Chicken-Fried Women is a celebration of them: the women who raised us, taught us to cook and clap back. The ones who prayed for us, raged at us and humbled us a notch or two when we needed it. These are the women who have encouraged us, teased us, chastised us, and mortified us. And as they fill up the seats around our table, we realize we wouldn't have it any other way.

They're our Chicken-Fried Women--battered on the outside, tender on the inside. Some are salty and a couple are Nashville Hot. Filled with a hilarious cast of larger-than life women, this book explores why no one messes with Southern women and their hair, why the whole family comes along when you go bra shopping, why true crime and aquarobics brings us together, and how faith shapes us through it all.

Insightful, big-hearted and laugh-out-loud funny, Chicken-Fried Women is a celebration of friendship, kinship and the women who shaped us.


Author: Melissa Radke
Publisher: Worthy Books
Published: 04/22/2025
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781546008248

About the Author

Melissa Radke is a best-selling author, speaker, and television personality who has charmed audiences worldwide with her hilarious and candid insights on life, love, and the complexities of the modern world. Known as the HGIC--Head Girlfriend in Charge--Melissa has been cheering women on since 2016 and sharing tips on what to buy, what to wear, how to LAUGH, and do your hair with her online community of over 1.1 million followers.

Originally from East Texas, Melissa spent over fifteen years in Nashville, Tennessee, having graduated from Belmont University with a bachelor's degree in commercial music performance. With a love of writing about real life, parenting, and the importance of learning our identity, Melissa published her national best-selling book, Eat Cake. Be Brave., in 2018, released by Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group. She was also the star of the family-friendly television show The Radkes on the USA Network. The show was an unscripted sitcom that focused on her big, loud Southern family and all of their charm.

A mom to two and a wife to one, Melissa embodies the perfect Southern blend of sweet tea and hairspray. She married her college sweetheart, David, in 1994. Melissa, David, and their teenage children, Remi and Rocco, live in the small East Texas town where she was born and raised, Lufkin, Texas.