Set in the steamy, stormy landscape of South Carolina, this New York Times bestseller from the author of Queen Bee is the unforgettable story of one woman’s courageous journey toward truth… conflicted woman with an unfaithful husband, a sometimes resentful teenage daughter, and a heart that aches with painful, poignant memories. And as Susan faces her uncertain future, she realizes that she must go back to her past. To the beachfront house where her sister welcomes her with open arms. To the only place she can truly call home…
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This story touches on love, devotion, abuse, fear, great love of family. I truly enjoyed every page of this book. I highly recommend.
Great true to life story. Really loved the book.
I read this book years ago, but I remember how much I enjoyed it.
Everything she ever wrote was wonderful.
Living in Mt Pleasant/Charleston, DBF books are very entertaining. I’ve been to so many of the places in her book that it’s like having a conversation with a friend. With her passing it is like a loss of a friend.
Well, I am a total Dottie Frank fan! I’ve probably read this book before, but it was refreshingly new this time! She knows the area and it’s extremely fun to read about a place I’ve visited and loved. I am now re-reading her “Return to Sullivan’s Island” and thoroughly enjoying the next generation’s tale!!
This is one of my favorite books, and DBF’s very best! I have read it 4 times (in 8 years) and, like a favorite movie, it just gets better every time!
When life gives you lemons you make lemonade…many woman go through this either being discarded or realizing after raising kids there is more to life…and boy does she find hets
I live in the low country and this was very much on the mark regarding the flvor of our area of the country. Southern without the syrup.
Just didn’t enjoy the book and didn’t finish it.
This woman is an amazing writer. No wonder she won her bet with her husband that she would write a bestseller and pay for a house on Sullivans Island!
As all of Dorothy Benton Frank’s books, it was delightful.
I enjoy the characters and their lives on a small southern island.
Could not put this book down! Left my housecleaing until tomorrow because I had to know what happened. This is a sort of epic story covering in great depth a year in the life of a family juxtaposed with what was happening to them 30 years later. The setting in the low country of South Carolina near Charleston is beautifully described and utilized as a setting of historic proportions brought into the 21st century. We have a family headed by a domineering, abusive, adulturous man and his reclusive, hypochrondriac wife who have given birth to two boys and two grils the oldest of which is 15 and in the beginning of the story twin girls are added. In the age of Civil Rights protests, the family must depend on Livvie, a black housekeeper-cook-nanny who takes on the project of discipline and organization for the whole family. The children are rearing themselves including feeding, sleeping, going to church etc. Despite the severe beatings and cruel treatment of the father, the children band together to overcome and care for one another. Moving ahead, the children are adults and still have that close bond forged by the love and attention of Livvie, the loss of their parents and grandparents. The boys are successful professionals, the twins are lost in their own world somewhere, the two girls live in the Charleston area–one a librarian and one a surgeons wife. The reader suffers with the daughter of the librian as she suffers through the breakup of her family, her moving from adolescence to teen age with all of the ups and downs. I loved this book.
A fictional story with the benefit of historical realities. I’ve enjoyed her characters and the use of present day and then reaching into the past to the childhood of the family and history of the Gallah culture and ramifications of segregation and integration of the times.
I loved the character of Susan. She always kept her humor in spite of being kicked around at times. The relationship with her daughter never faltered no matter what. Also was informative about what the Lowcountry was as well as vivid descriptions of everything. I always like books that go back and forth between eras and the author really held it together. Family dynamics were so great as well as brutally honest. I am impressed with the author and plan on reading her other works.
Great low country read!
The story reflects environment and memories as central to our path as adults. The characters are likeable and believable but quirky.
I loved this book and hated to put it down when I finished.
I read Return to Sullivan’s Island a few years ago and then decided I needed to read the first book. Ms. Frank’s books are full of wit and humor, and yet so full of bittersweet truths that you just have to keep reading. If you haven’t been to the Low Country of South Carolina, you will feel like you have after reading Sullivan’s Island. So sad that the book world lost a wonderful author too soon.