Nell and Lady

A Novel

By: Ashley Farley

Narrated by: Shannon McManus

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's Summary

A heart-stirring novel of family and forgiveness from bestselling author Ashley Farley.

In her grand home in Charleston, Willa Bellemore raised two girls during the tumultuous 1970s. One was her daughter, Lady. The other was Lady’s best friend, Nell - adopted after the sudden, heartbreaking death of her mother, the Bellemores’ beloved maid. Willa showered Nell with love and support, all the while ignoring the disdainful whispers of her neighbors. After all, they were family. Nell and Lady were sisters at heart - sisters who vowed to never let anything come between them.

Then, on the night of Lady’s sixteenth birthday, something went terribly wrong, sparking painful secrets and bitter resentments that went unspoken for three decades.

Now Willa is dying, and Lady and Nell - each with a teenager of her own - are brought together after all these years. It’s Willa’s last wish. The time has come to confront what happened on that fateful night. But it may take a tragic twist of fate to reconcile the past and come to terms with the true meaning of family.

©2018 Ashley Farley (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Love love love

Amazing story. It's definitely a new fav of mine. Sweet and feel good with intense themes. And clean! Finally a novel that doesn't rely on sex to sell.

Unexpected and wonderful

This was a story that I wasn't expecting, Lady and Nell's friendship was very beautiful to be destroyed but something really terrible happened that nobody knows and drove Nell and Lady so far apart that not even their families know what happened.. they're also driven away from the putting an abysm between them making almost impossible to even have a friendship or a family again.

Lady and Nell were so tight to each other, they live together and do everything together even their momes were closer but something happened to Nell at Lady's party that everything after that was completely destroyed.

This is the story of two friends trying to recover what was left, life and circumstances have put them on the same path again, and maybe this is the right time for any of them to finally lower their walls and start to see clearly.

I really enjoy this book especially when I meet Lady's daughter and Nell's son they were a very important key to this story and I really enjoy finding out more about them.

The two husbands were terrible, I feel like this book shows a lot of support for women, especially women who are living hell in their own house, with a husband that doesn't care about their feelings or even about them.. both of them were two macho characters that their happiness was more important than even the happiness of their own kids.

the narrations by Shannon McManus were amazing!! I really enjoy so much her voice and how she brought so much to each character and also the story

so much to say about this story but without giving too much away, this book has drama, friendship, love, angst and a lot of scenarios that will keep playing and trying to keep sabotaging Nells and Lady's friendship no matter how much they try life will keep on testing them over and over again..

Good premise poorly executed

1. Bad dialogue--very stilted or unnatural.
2. Black woman hates all white people because of one terrible thing that happened when she was a teenager. Hmmm. Nothing else contributed to her feelings? When she tells her teenaged son about this incident he responds pompously that he doesn't see color/race (or something to that effect). Really? Is there a minority group alive (race, religion, sex, body type, disability) that hasn't experienced some kind of discrimination, micro aggression, bullying, nasty comments, etc.? So this boy growing up in the south lectures his mom about her racism because he has never experience ANY? And I didn't buy the one bad experience makes her hate all white people. And it's a white woman writing this, which made me rather uncomfortable.
3. Bad boundaries: Your kid is not your contemporary and you shouldn't be telling your kid some things that the mother tells her kid. But this isn't even presented as bad boundaries.

I'm sure a different author could have made the premise of this book work, but not this one. This goes in the return category.

An Enjoyable Story

The story line is enjoyable. The characters are well developed and like able. Though the story deals with several potentially heavy subjects without being a heavy read.

Ebony, Ivory, Privilege, and Need

This tale of two best friends . . . and sisters . . . is so well told that I don’t know exactly where to start in writing this review. One of the best books I’ve come across in a long time, Nell and Lady grew up together in Charleston, SC where Nell’s mother, Mavis worked for Lady’s mother, Willa as her maid. She’s also Nell’s nanny and pays more attention to her than her mother most of the time. Both Mavis (loving called May May by Willa) and Willa are single mothers and they are as close as they can be, although Mavis is black and Willa is white. Lady, Willa’s daughter is spoiled rotten, but she and Nell are also best of friends. What I love about this story is that the personalities of each girl/woman is not hidden, but told forthrightly and openly, and how they each accept and love one another despite of or because of who they are. After Mavis dies and leaves Nell with no one, Willa adopts her, ignoring the ire of her uppity neighbors, who in the Charleston of the 1970s think her crazy. Willa sees that Nell grows up with the same education and privileges that Lady has. And the girls remain best friends until the night of Lady’s sixteenth birthday party. Fast forward to years later when both women have children of their own, and Willa is an old woman and ill. Circumstances cause Booker, Nell’s son and Regan, Lady’s daughter who attend the same high school to learn about their mothers’ friendship and question the past. The unraveling of this tale with their children and Willa, and the culmination of the two women finally facing one another is well worth the wait. Don’t miss this amazing, gut wrenching story of love, pain and ultimately hope.

Feel good book

A really good story about family. It doesn't matter if it's blood, as long as there's love. Great performance as well. I was able to sit back and visualize the characters.

a must read

This was an excellent book. the characters were well developed. The narrator was very good, although she did not know how to pronounce chaise lounge. I highly recommend this audio book.

Yes

Great book. So emotional but what a great ending to a wonderful story, oh my!

Story drug on and on

The narrator was good, but the story seemed to really drag. You have to pay attention to the audiobook, because the POV and timeline changes frequently. It was worth the sale price, just not one of my favorite books.

good read

enjoyed the narration as well as the
story line. From the area so was able to relate.

Worth persevering with

This book definitely became more interesting as it went through, but it was quite predictable, all the same. Very slow to get going.