I finished this book going "that's it?". I didn't know it was the first part of a trilogy - that makes more sense. I was bored with this book. It read like a TV series you watch weekly with no real dramatic 'catch' events and the Mamaw character being completely unrealistic. Monroe's descriptive ...
Mary Alice Monroe's follow up to The Beach House takes readers back to Olivia's younger days and gives the heartbreaking romance between Olivia and the true love of her life, Russell Bennett. After getting bits of their tale in the first installment, I had to get the details. Torn between duty...
I found the book compelling..kind of a fictional companion to Jane Pauley's Your Life Calling. Monroe uses information about monarch butterflies in each chapter's beginning. The information relates both to the butterflies in the story and the journey of the characters. Strong women characters ...
Another good story from Mary Alice Monroe! The shrimping industry is such a vital business in the Carolinas and this story delves into the men and women whose lives are directly involved with shrimping. So much information is given that I at times was overwhelmed. However, it was never to the poi...
The audiobook was read by the author, which was wonderful. She was great at doing different voices for different characters.There were some things that bothered me a little. The story could turn a tiny bit corny at times, and though most of the conversations were very realistic(she really did a g...
Actual Rating: ***1/2Another women's book club story that had all of the usual heartaches and life complications; however, Monroe's writing made working through the tangle of story lines well worth the reading time.Opening Lines:PrologueEve of ReturnJanuary 7, 1998Tonight, I will return to my Boo...
This story is a follow-up to The Beach House; another Monroe book I enjoyed. This story is well written in that the journey of the turtle named Big Girl mirrors the journey of Toy Sooner the main character.The story is fairly predictable, but interesting. I found myself wanting to know much more ...
I picked this book up from a selection a friend donated to raise money for animal welfare here in Egypt. It is not really my kind of book, but I thought I would give it a go. It turned out to be a book that mirrored my own feelings of myself at the point of reading it. A troubled soul trying to ...
This is my first try at a Mary Alice Monroe book, and I must say that on the whole I expected to feel more moved by it. Admittedly, it was enjoyable enough, although a little old fashioned. It did bring back a lot of images of my trip to South Carolina and the Low Country, back in 2006. I truly l...
I'm sorry, Mary Alive Monroe, but were you trying to rewrite Jane Eyre? Because you didn't do a very good job. Honestly, the predictability of this book was ridiculous and 50 pages in I said, "Oh, she's trying to re-do Jane Eyre and is failing." SPOILERS AHEAD There is everything from the fem...
The Four Seasons, by Mary Alice Monroe, narrated by Sandra Burr, produced by Brilliance Audio, downloaded from audible.comThere were four sisters, with the last name of Season. Their father called them The Four Seasons and had nicknames for most of them. Jillian, the oldest, was Jillie. Beatri...
Carson stood on the upper dock of Sea Breeze, her arms folded across her chest against the stiff breeze, staring out at the water of the Cove. There was a break in the rain, but a chilly, wet breeze stirred the waters, creating ripples and making her huddle deeper into her Windbreaker like a turt...
The sun was a ghostly eye in the sky, obscured by an armada of gray clouds. She sidestepped several vegetable and herb flats as she crossed the porch to join Mamaw and Lucille playing cards in their usual spot under the awning. The awning was rattling in the gusts of wind. She took a seat at the ...
Why couldn’t this Jeep go faster? His foot pushed the pedal to the metal, but the battered car wouldn’t go more than fifty-five miles per hour. When he thought of the Ferrari in his garage in New York, he ground his teeth in frustration. Then laughed. He could see himself trying to explain to Nor...
Fed by rain and melted snow, rivulets of cold, clear water gush over boulders and between rocky ridges to lace the mountainsides. Thousands of miles of freestone streams run unchecked, cascading down to form the mighty rivers.Mia Landan followed the river as it wound in a serpentine manner, deepe...
Mamaw exclaimed, clasping her hands together. “Sea Breeze is now officially yours.” Harper’s chest constricted as she looked at her signature on the deed. There, on the bottom of the real estate deed, was her name written in her tight vertical script: Harper Muir-James. She’d done it. Or rather, ...
They’d rented long tables to place on the back screened porch and covered them with bright-blue paper tablecloths, paper dishes, plastic forks and spoons and the fresh flowers Lovie had brought home from the florist. Nobody wanted to spend the evening washing dirty dishes when there were firework...