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Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies...sensitive, sensible, self-contained Cecie...Ginger, the heiress, sexy, vibrant, richer than sin...and poor, hopeless, brilliant Fig. They came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus in the '60s. Four young women bound by rare, blinding early friendship, they spent two idyllic spring breaks at Nags Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weather-beaten houses perch defiantly on the edge of a storm-tossed sea.
The Lowcountry of South Carolina is where By Invitation Only begins, at a barbecue engagement party thrown by Diane English Stiftel, her brother Floyd, and her parents to celebrate her son’s engagement. On this gorgeous, magical night, the bride’s father, Alejandro Cambria, a wealthy power broker whose unbelievably successful career in private equity made him one of Chicago’s celebrated elite, discovers the limits and possibilities of cell phone range.
For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly - happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does...in loss. After Cam's death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine.
At 12, Emily Parmenter is left mostly to herself after her mother disappears and her beloved older brother dies. Emily has built a life around the faded plantation where her remote father and hunting-obsessed brothers raise hunting spaniels. It is a meager, masculine world, but to Emily it has magic. And then comes Lulu Foxworth, troubled daughter of a truly grand plantation, who has run away from her hectic Charleston debutante season.
When beautiful, dirt-poor Ruth Yancey rises to become mistress of Sparta, Georgia's finest mansion, she reveals a heart of pure evil. For three generations, she rules the mansion through cruel manipulation and insinuation, breaking hearts and shattering souls - until one courageous woman decides to match her madness.
Dorothea Benton Frank is a treasure of American letters with numerous New York Times best-sellers to her credit and a portfolio full of critical acclaim. “Mixing high drama and high jinks” ( Booklist), her third Lowcountry novel follows the fortunes of the dysfunctional Abbot family. Looking to set her life aright, Anna Lutz Abbot returns to her South Carolina lowcountry hometown. And as she attempts to right past wrongs, Anna receives help and support from a quirky cast of lovable locals sure to endear themselves to listeners.
Elegant Kate, walking a tightrope over an abyss of lies...sensitive, sensible, self-contained Cecie...Ginger, the heiress, sexy, vibrant, richer than sin...and poor, hopeless, brilliant Fig. They came together as sorority sisters on a Southern campus in the '60s. Four young women bound by rare, blinding early friendship, they spent two idyllic spring breaks at Nags Head, North Carolina, the isolated strip of barrier islands where grand old weather-beaten houses perch defiantly on the edge of a storm-tossed sea.
The Lowcountry of South Carolina is where By Invitation Only begins, at a barbecue engagement party thrown by Diane English Stiftel, her brother Floyd, and her parents to celebrate her son’s engagement. On this gorgeous, magical night, the bride’s father, Alejandro Cambria, a wealthy power broker whose unbelievably successful career in private equity made him one of Chicago’s celebrated elite, discovers the limits and possibilities of cell phone range.
For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly - happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does...in loss. After Cam's death, Lilly takes a lone road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the remote coast of Maine.
At 12, Emily Parmenter is left mostly to herself after her mother disappears and her beloved older brother dies. Emily has built a life around the faded plantation where her remote father and hunting-obsessed brothers raise hunting spaniels. It is a meager, masculine world, but to Emily it has magic. And then comes Lulu Foxworth, troubled daughter of a truly grand plantation, who has run away from her hectic Charleston debutante season.
When beautiful, dirt-poor Ruth Yancey rises to become mistress of Sparta, Georgia's finest mansion, she reveals a heart of pure evil. For three generations, she rules the mansion through cruel manipulation and insinuation, breaking hearts and shattering souls - until one courageous woman decides to match her madness.
Dorothea Benton Frank is a treasure of American letters with numerous New York Times best-sellers to her credit and a portfolio full of critical acclaim. “Mixing high drama and high jinks” ( Booklist), her third Lowcountry novel follows the fortunes of the dysfunctional Abbot family. Looking to set her life aright, Anna Lutz Abbot returns to her South Carolina lowcountry hometown. And as she attempts to right past wrongs, Anna receives help and support from a quirky cast of lovable locals sure to endear themselves to listeners.
Peyton is not ready to share her widowed father with anyone, let alone a barely remembered cousin who just rolled into town. However, her father seems to like Nora well enough, and prim Aunt Augusta hates her, which raises Nora slightly in Peyton's esteem. Maybe Nora is just what quiet Lytton, Georgia, needs this summer.
When they were growing up, Dana, Harper, and Tawny thought of themselves as “sometimes sisters.” They connected only during the summer month they’d all spend at their grandmother’s rustic lakeside resort in north Texas. But secrets started building, and ten years have passed since they’ve all been together—in fact, they’ve rarely spoken, and it broke their grandmother’s heart.
Caroline Murphy swore she'd never set foot back in the small Southern town of Peachtree Bluff; she was a New York girl born and bred and the worst day of her life was when, in the wake of her father's death, her mother selfishly forced her to move - during her senior year of high school, no less - back to that hick-infested rat trap where she'd spent her childhood summers.
Molly Bell Redwine was raised to believe that nothing is more important than "The Family". But everything Molly values is challenged when her domineering mother dies, her husband leaves her for a younger woman, and her Atlanta family scatters to the four winds. She takes refuge by visiting friends in Martha's Vineyard, a very different world that hastens her changing identity.
Cara Rutledge returns to her Southern home on the idyllic Isle of Palms. Everything is comfortingly the same, yet each detail is rife with painful memories. Only through reconnecting with family, friends, and the rhythms of the lowcountry can Cara release the hold of the past and open herself to the possibility of a new love, career, and hope for the future.
Their only criteria was oceanfront and isolation, their only desire to strengthen their far-flung friendships. They called themselves the Girls of August. But when one of the Girls dies tragically, the group slowly drifts apart and their vacations together are brought to a halt. Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they decide to come together once again on a remote barrier island off the South Carolina coast. There, far from civilization, the women make startling discoveries that will change them in ways they never expected.
When 99-year-old heiress Josephine Bettendorf Warrick summons Brooke Trappnell to Talisa Island, her 20,000-acre remote barrier island home, Brooke is puzzled. Everybody in the South has heard about the eccentric millionaire mistress of Talisa, but Brooke has never met her. Over the course of a few meetings, Josephine spins a tale of old friendships, dark secrets, betrayal, and a long-unsolved murder. She wants Brooke to help her make amends with the heirs of the women who were her closest friends....
Anny Butler is a caretaker, a nurturer, first for her own brothers and sisters, and then as a director of an agency devoted to the welfare of children. What she has never had is a real family. That changes when she meets and marries Lewis Aiken, an exuberant surgeon 15 years older than Anny. When they marry, she finds her family: not a traditional one, but a group of Charleston childhood friends who are inseparable, who are one another's surrogate family. They are called the Scrubs.
A few years after losing her beloved husband, Alison is doing something she never thought she would do again: getting married. While placing the finishing touches on her summer nuptials, Alison is anxious to introduce her fiancé, David, to her grown daughters: Felicity, a worried married mother of two, and Jane, also married but focused on her career. The sisters have a somewhat distant relationship and Alison hopes that the wedding and the weeks leading up to the ceremony will give the siblings a chance to reconnect, as well as meet and get to know David’s grown children.
Caretta Rutledge thought she’d left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind. But an unusual request from her mother – coming just as her own life is spinning out of control – has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers. Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart in wonderful ways as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide “turtle lady” and renews old acquaintances long thought lost.
Memorial Day weekend means that seasonal visitors have descended on the glamorous island of Nantucket. For year-round resident Darcy Cotterill, it means late-night stargazing in the backyard of the beautiful house she grew up in and inherited from her beloved grandmother. It's also Darcy's chance to hit the beach and meet her new summertime neighbors. But the last person the thirty-year-old librarian expects to see staying next door is her ex-husband, Boyz, along with his wife, Autumn, and stepdaughter, Willow.
When new next-door neighbors Georgia, Midge, and Lula first assembled on Georgia's porch in Charleston for sweet tea, they couldn't have known their gathering was the beginning of a treasured tradition. For 26 years they have met on Tuesdays at four o'clock, watching the seasons change and their children grow up, supporting each other in good times and in bad. With their ambitions as different as their personalities, these best friends anticipate many more years of tea time.
"Siddons is a masterful storyteller." (New York Times Book Review)
"Siddons has never written a sentence that did not have music in it." (Pat Conroy)
Excellent book, one of the most entertaining authors of our time!
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