This book was Terrible - Do not bother to even pick up to try it. I have loved the author thru the years...very surprised, how much I disliked. The premise, the writing everything bad. The characters had mean persona's...just very odd that Siddons wrote this...huge disappointment - oh, and I did...
Homeplace is set in the fictional town of Lytton, Georgia, and hits on some very controversial subjects for Siddons. She goes back to the Civil Rights era where the main character Mike meets the wrath of her father when she skips school to attend a rally in Atlanta. This turning point in the nove...
I loved this book better than Peachtree Road up to 98%. The story theme was about false appearances, people acting on the surface in civilized and splendid fakery, like the elegant dancing of 18th century Baroque minuets. The setting is four middle-aged sorority girls and a reunion at a grand hou...
There's lots to dislike about this book. Main characters Shep (male cousin, narrator) and Lucy (repeatedly stated to be 2 years younger than Shep, moves in with Shep's wealthy family when her shiftless dad runs away)are selfish, incestuous, callous, co-dependent snobs. Lucy in particular is a del...
Beware of preconceived notions. When I pulled the battered copy of Up Island from a box of discarded books a friend had asked me to disperse, I saw the author’s name. Anne Rivers Siddons? Isn’t she a romance writer? Or does she do quick-read shallow best sellers? But reading the jacket flap, I sa...
A good summer read, particularly if you are visiting the low country of South Carolina. However, I have to admit that I would not have even looked twice at this book had I not enjoyed "Peachtree Road" so much. "Peachtree Road" is by far a deeper, more complex book, and overall, better literatur...
I loved the excitement Smoky felt about her first real job and the glamour of Atlanta at the beginning of this book. I could relate. I remember my first “real” job and how exciting it was to work “downtown”. And that song played through my head as I read the book. Siddons has been known to add...
Colony is another tightly crafted novel by the inimitable Anne Rivers Siddons, whose intimate narrative shines through in this expose on summer life in an insular, cloistered colony on the untamed coast of Maine. Maude Gascoigne is nineteen and fresh from the outskirts of Charleston, South Caroli...
I didn't want to finish this book. It was so very good. Siddons just writes in a way that "you're there". You just sink right into the setting and you're there. You can smell the salty air, marsh, pluff grass, tidewater pools, and wet dogs. This book's setting was close to Folly Beach and th...
Quotable:It takes a lot to ruffle Henry. She can do it, though. I always wondered, in a way, why he married her, aside from the fact that he’s crazy about her, of course. Henry needs a safe, sheltered harbor more than anybody else I know. He hasn’t had a whole lot of that with Fairlie. Of course,...
I PICKED IT UP FROM AMID THE CLUTTER on the bureau top. Perhaps Joe and I would simply go on communicating via notes for the rest of the trip. Have gone over to the hotel with Ada to help her and Maria get Colin up and dressed. He insists on coming to lunch. See you there....
Kitty Howard said to me a couple of years ago.We were lying on our stomachs on the old dock that rambled drunkenly from Kitty’s bed-and-breakfast inn, on a spit of swampy land that bordered a sort of hiccup in Chesapeake Bay, near Ware Neck. Why anyone wanted to sleep and eat cinnamon buns on thi...
“Don’t call them; they’ll call you,” he said. “What?” “I just got a call from the president of Coltrane College. You know, the little one over at Oxford? The good one?” “Well, of course I know Coltrane. Grand’s sister went th...