I enjoy stories where the characters and their dialogue feel real, and that's the case with Shem Creek. Divorced mother Linda Breeland moves her two teenage daughters from New Jersey to the Low Country of South Carolina where she grew up. Her goal is to simplify her hectic and disappointing life and to provide a better environment for her children. Of course, her girls are not too thrilled about the change, and things are not as simple as Linda expected.
I enjoyed the distinct personalities of all the characters in this book: brash and sometimes outspoken Linda; her polite college-bound daughter Lindsay; her troublemaker fifteen-year-old daughter Gracie; and Linda's capable sister, Southern gentlewoman Mimi. The dialogue is crisp, modern, and each person has her own voice. I fell in love with these characters and wanted each of them to achieve their goals, and I had fun along the way.
First Paragraph:
A Postcard From Linda
Can I just tell you why I am so deliriously happy to drive all through the night from New Jersey to South Carolina? Here we are, boxed in between this wall of eighteen-wheelers on our left and right, in front and behind, in this little pocket of flying road, racing down I-95 at seventy-six miles an hour. My daughters are asleep beside me and in the backseat. I don't care that it's pouring rain. I don't care that it's dark. On another night, I would be terrified out of my skin by the blasting of horns. But not tonight. Let me tell you something. These trucks are like huge guardian angels rushing us to safety and the rain is washing us clean. Life has been a little rough around the edges and it was time to break out. Yeah. A little rough would be one way of understating it.
Teaser (from Page 153 in my paperback copy):
That was how we were. Our family preferred not to speak of things that were uneasy to hear. We would hem and haw around them like a patch of green stickers in the grass and we were barefoot children, unprepared for pain, unwilling to give pain a chance to teach us something.
Length: 365 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction / Family Saga
Amazon Link: Shem Creek
Author Website: Dorothea Benton Frank
Shem Creek is Book Four in the Lowcountry Tales series, but it stands alone. It was first published in 2005. I have featured this author on my blog before: The Land of Mango Sunsets
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Pat Conroy has called her books “hilarious and wise”, noting that they are “funny, sexy and usually damp with sea water.” Anne Rivers Siddons said of Sullivans Island that it “roared with life.” Now Dorothea Benton Frank takes us back to the Lowcountry to introduce a whole new cast of characters whose lives will surely move your heart.Linda Breland has no experience managing a restaurant, but then neither did Brad Jackson, and he owns the place.
Meet Linda Breland, single parent of two teenage daughters. The oldest, Lindsey, who always held her younger sister in check, is leaving for college. And Gracie, her Tasmanian devil, is giving her nightmares. Linda’s personal life? Well, between the married men, the cold New Jersey winters, her pinched wallet and her ex-husband who marries a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is—let’s just say, Linda has seen enough to fill a thousand pages.
As the story opens, she is barreling down Interstate 95, bound for Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the land of her ancestors. Welcomed by the generous heart of her advice dispensing sister, Mimi, Linda and her daughters slowly begin to find their way and discover a sweeter rhythm of life.
And then there’s Brad Jackson, a former investment banker of Atlanta, Georgia who hires her to run his restaurant on Shem Creek. Like everyone else, Brad’s got a story of his own—namely an almost ex-wife, Loretta who is the kind of gal who gives women a bad name.
The real protagonist of this story is the Lowcountry itself. The magical waters of Shem Creek, the abundant wildlife and the astounding power of nature give this tiny corner of the planet its infallible reputation as a place for introspection, contemplation and healing.
As in all her previous work, you’ll find Shem Creek to be compulsively readable, irreverent but warm and blazingly authentic—and you’ll dread reaching the last page. It is her vivid writing, colorful characters and rich narrative that have made Dorothea Benton Frank one of our nation’s greatest storytellers. Shem Creek is a triumphant novel that proves we are all entitled to a second chance. The challenge is to learn how to recognize it when it comes and to know which chance to take.
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