“Visiting the Sins is Melanie Denman’s debut novel, an uproarious series of vignettes about the
Wheeler family, a small-town clan dominated by strong-willed women with sharp tongues and an unfortunate habit of marrying weak men.”
Gary B. Borders — A Hanging in Nacogdoches

“Melanie Denman comes from a long and celebrated tradition of southern writers combining pathos and humor with glorious results. Her characters–the women in particular–are marvelous: irreverent, scandalous and unapologetically themselves.  Her language is as fresh and original as they are, and she uses a wonderfully unconventional structure to create this multi-generational family saga… has you laughing and crying, sometimes within the very same scene…”
Malena Watrous — If You Follow Me

“Few can depict rural East Texans – or rural Southerners, for that matter – with such accuracy and sensitivity as Melanie Denman did in Visiting the Sins. Or with such heartbreaking realism… She plumbs the depths of their personalities with warm-hearted humor for their human comedy, and with wisdom and understanding for the flaws that go with mankind’s eternal condition. …”
F.E. Abernethy — Let the River Run Wild: Saving the Neches

“…vividly captures the voice and spirit of the feisty, fiercely independent people of Deep East Texas. Visiting the Sins is old-fashioned Southern storytelling at its hilarious, heartbreaking, poetic best.”
Frank Mills — If the Devil Had a Wife

“…strong relationships between the characters and the history of the old town… As the characters age through the story you can actually follow their thought process–thanks to the way Denman develops them and portrays their relationships.”
Robert C. Nuzum — Old Spanish Trail Treasure