Tag Archives: Southern fiction

Book Review: The Light on Horn Island

6 Aug

Valerie Fraser Luesse is a favorite of my book club. Her latest multi-generational women’s fiction, The Light on Horn Island, is so good! We all loved it. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do!

Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past. 

When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?

Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.

Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com.

My Impressions:

Valerie Fraser Luesse does it again! Her latest novel, The Light on Horn Island, combines history, mystery, and multi-generational relationships to create a thought-provoking story with characters that will win your heart. Set amidst the backdrop of the Mississippi Gulf Coast, the story centers on Edie Gardner, a young woman who has faced a profound loss that sends her back to the comfort of her grandmother’s house and her beloved Horn Island. Luesse captures the region perfectly with the sights and the flavors described. I am very familiar with the area (my husband is a south Mississippi boy) and I felt I was cruising the highway and visiting all the picturesque towns that make up the region. Mystery abounds, including a very mysterious shop owner, as Edie and the other women navigate loss, regret, guilt, and hope for the future. My husband was a child when Hurricane Camille hit Biloxi, and he has shared memories of the devastation. Luesse does a great job of sharing the personal stories of victims and survivors alike. My favorite part of the novel is the relationships the author creates between the women. Long time friendships are heralded and new paths forward are forged — it’s an homage to women of all generations building each other up and having each other’s backs.

I highly recommend The Light on Horn Island. This book can be savored anywhere and at all times, although it would be perfect read on a porch with an ice cold drink and a view of the water. 😉

Highly Recommended.

Great for Book Clubs.

Audience: Adults.

(I received a complimentary copy from NetGalley. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)

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First Line Friday — The Light on Horn Island

18 Jul

Happy Friday! If you are looking for a beach-y read, look no further than The Light on Horn Island by Valerie Fraser Luesse. Set in the early 2000s on the Mississippi coast, it also highlights devastating Hurricane Camille that hit that state in 1969. It is pure southern and pays homage to all that is great about the Mississippi gulf coast. I loved the multigenerational cast of characters and the magical element that Luesse introduces. Or is it supernatural? You decide!

Here’s the first line:

Good pimento cheese is a reason to live.

Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past. 

When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?

Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.

Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com.

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July Book Club Pick — The Light on Horn Island

1 Jul

This month’s book club pick is from one of my group’s favorite authors — The Light on Horn Island by Valerie Fraser Luesse. This one looks like a perfect summer read. Find out all about it below.

Just when her life comes crumbling down, she discovers secrets that could shape her future–and heal her past. 

When Edie Gardner’s life in New York falls apart, her grandmother Adele “Punk” Cheramie coaxes her back to tiny Bayou du Chêne, Mississippi. Edie spent many happy summers there, a stone’s throw from untamed Horn Island, where she once found love. Can she now demystify the island’s strange new light?

Punk and her colorful friends introduce Edie to the Trove, a fascinating gallery and antique shop. Like Horn Island’s light, The Trove has appeared out of nowhere. Its proprietor, with a gift for discerning his customers’ needs, gives Edie a Victorian parlor game that asks players a series of personal questions, which is harmless fun at first. But Edie and her grandmother’s circle find that the game has a way of uncovering secrets, including a heartbreak that has haunted one of the women for decades. Banding together, this Southern sisterhood is determined to find answers that will bring healing, hope, and happiness–and maybe explain the transcendent illumination of a wild and windswept barrier island.

Valerie Fraser Luesse is the author of novels set in the South. An award-winning magazine writer, Luesse is perhaps best known for her feature stories and essays in Southern Living, where she wrote major pieces on the Mississippi Delta, Acadian Louisiana, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Her editorial section on the recovering Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, photographed by Mark Sandlin, won the 2009 Travel Writer of the Year award from the Southeast Tourism Society. Luesse earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Auburn University and Baylor University, respectively. Find her online at valeriefraserluesse.com; facebook.com/valeriefraserluessebooks; bakerpublishinggroup.com; bookbub.com/authors/valerie-fraser-luesse; and goodreads.com

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Happy Release Day! — A Gardin Wedding

13 May

I’m wising a very happy release day to Rosey Lee, author of A Gardin Wedding. I first encountered the Gardin family in The Gardins of Edin. I was hooked on this mess of a thoroughly southern family. I can’t wait to see what Martha is up to! If you haven’t read that first book, get it now! A Gardin Wedding builds on the first book — you do not want to miss any of the fun!

One of the Gardin women must navigate a season rich with unexpected challenges in the follow-up to The Gardins of Edin, a heartwarming story about love, forgiveness, new beginnings, and what it takes to get there.

Martha Gardin is a mess, and no one knows this better than the women in her family. Good-hearted but often misguided by distrust and insecurity, Martha is known for stirring up drama. That’s why Ruth, Naomi, and Mary are pleasantly surprised when Martha mellows out after she begins dating one of the most eligible bachelors in town. 

Handsome, well-connected Oji Greenwald is everything Martha hoped to find in a man, and it’s only a matter of time before he pops the question. Rarely caught off guard, Martha is accustomed to getting her way. But when it appears she’s finally about to have the life she’s always wanted, a crisis in Oji’s family brings out Martha’s tendency to try to save the day her way, and the divide deepens between her and Oji’s already indifferent mother, Eve. 

Confronted with these unforeseen challenges to her plans, Martha finds herself on a journey that forces her to fully acknowledge her previous mistakes and reconcile her past. But will it be enough to deliver her the future—and the love—her heart desires?

Rosey Lee writes hopeful stories about complicated families and complex friendships. As a native of the Westbank of New Orleans, Louisiana who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, Rosey’s writing is inspired by the people, traditions, and food that anchor her to the South. She enjoys cooking, listening to live music, and occasional bursts of fanatical bargain shopping.

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First Line Friday — Dysfunction Junction

28 Feb

Robin Pearson is a delight and her books are wonderful! I had the pleasure of meeting her last November at the Reading Rendezvous in Chicago and again at the 2025 Turning A New Page Book Festival in Perry, Georgia. I snagged a copy of Dysfunction Junction at the festival, but neglected to have her sign it. Just another reason to make sure our paths cross again. 😉

Here’s the first line:

“What time is it?” Annabelles’ voice quavered as she studied the shadows huddling under the sliding board in Lincoln Park.

When three women receive an unexpected phone call that leaves them reeling, they have no other choice but to reckon with a lifetime of memories they’ve long tried to bury. Only in facing the past will they find their path forward.

Frances Mae Livingston’s firm grip of her family’s destructive history makes her hold her husband and four children even closer. But she’s losing bits of herself while proving to everybody and her mama that she’s enough. There’s no way she’ll repeat her mama’s mistakes, even if it kills her.

Annabelle McMillan didn’t have trouble kicking the Eastern North Carolina dust off her feet. The tough part was replanting herself in familiar soil. Now she’s blending her old life with her new husband, stepson, and unborn child. And battling old memories of abandonment and new fears of rejection.

Dr. Charlotte Winters has built a career around helping others sort through their emotional baggage. She’s also spent a lifetime refusing to unpack her own. So what if Charlotte doesn’t recall all that her mama did to her and what her daddy didn’t do for her? Her only mission is to help others help themselves…until the women from her past and the man in her future undo her well-sewn life.

At the junction of healed and hurting, broken and whole, and past and present, three women wrestle with their inability to forgive and forget in this riveting Southern family drama about sisterhood from award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.

Robin W. Pearson’s writing sprouts from her Southern upbringing, her belief in Jesus Christ, and her love of her husband, seven children, and their dog, Oscar. Her novels are “rooted in the soul of the story” and include her Christy Award–winning debut, A Long Time Comin’, as well as ’Til I Want No More, Walking in Tall Weeds, and her latest, Dysfunction Junction. Robin has corrected grammar up and down the East Coast in her career as an author and editor and in her calling as a homeschooling mama of many. She loves to share about her faith and her family through her fiction; her blog, Mommy Concentrated; and at conferences such as Breathe, Fiction Readers Summit, and Vision Christian Writers; and with her friends and followers. These people and experiences are the source of all the characters living and breathing in the stories waiting to be told about her belief in Jesus Christ and the experiences at her own kitchen sink.

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Mini-Review — The Gardins of Edin

9 Jan

If you are looking for a book with plenty of Southern-sass, then you are in for a treat with The Gardins of Edin by Rosey Lee. Set in the fictional town of Edin, Georgia, this contemporary novel features four women in the Gardin family — Ruth, Naomi, Martha, and Mary. That’s right! The characters are named for the famous biblical mother-in-law/daughter-in-law and sister duos. While this is not a retelling of Bible stories, the women are definitely inspired by their namesakes and there are plenty of spiritual truths shared. The Gardin family loves fiercely, but they are a messy bunch! Full of real life relationship pitfalls and strengths, Lee delivers a poignant story that also made me laugh out loud.

With its strong characterization, The Gardins of Edin is a wonderful debut from Lee. I look forward to a continuation of the story, A Gardin Wedding, releasing in May 2025.

Recommended.

Audience: Adults.

(I purchased the audiobook from Audible. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)

The four women of the Gardin family live side-by-side in Edin, Georgia, but residing in tight proximity doesn’t mean everything is picture-perfect. Ruth runs the family’s multimillion-dollar peanut business, a legacy of the Gardins’ formerly enslaved ancestors. But tensions have intensified since the death of her husband, Beau, and she feels like an outsider in the very place she wishes to belong. 

Sisters Mary and Martha fuel the family tension. Martha’s unfounded mistrust of Ruth causes her to constantly seek ways to undermine Ruth’s decisions with the business, while Mary, trying to focus on her new restaurant that serves healthy comfort food, is dragged into the family fray by Martha. 

For years, Naomi, the matriarch who raised the sisters after their parents’ death and supported Ruth in her grief, has played peacemaker. But as she decides to take a step back, hidden truths, life-and-death circumstances, and escalating clashes finally force the Gardin women to grapple with what it means to be a family.

A heartwarming Southern story of family and all its many complexities, The Gardins of Edin delivers a thoughtful portrayal of four women trying to hold on to their secrets. Women who just might—if they can only let go—find the peace they seek by holding on to one another.

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Book Club Selection — Indigo Isle

1 Jan

Happy New Year! And happy 2025 book club selections! My book club has some great reading ahead. First up is Indigo Isle by T. I. Lowe. This author of southern fiction will be a participant at the Turning A New Page Book Festival. I am so looking forward to reading the Christy Award-winning novel before I hear her speak. If you are anywhere in the middle Georgia area, make plans to attend on 1/25/25. Or there’s always road trip fun!

Sonny Bates left South Carolina fifteen years ago and never looked back. Now she’s a successful Hollywood location scout who travels the world, finding perfect places for movie shoots. Home is wherever she lands, and between her busy schedule and dealing with her boss’s demands, she has little time to think about the past . . . until her latest gig lands her a stone’s throw from everything she left behind.

Searching off the coast of Charleston for a secluded site to film a key scene, Sonny wanders onto a private barrier island and encounters its reclusive owner, known by locals as the Monster of Indigo Isle. What she finds is a man much more complex than the myth.

Once a successful New York attorney, Hudson Renfrow’s grief has exiled him to his island for several years. He spends his days alone, tending his fields of indigo, then making indigo dye―and he has no interest in serving the intrusive needs of a film company or yielding to Sonny’s determined curiosity. But when a hurricane makes landfall on the Carolina coast, stranding them together, an unlikely friendship forms between the two damaged souls. Soon the gruff exterior Hudson has long hidden behind crumbles―exposing the tender part of him that’s desperate for forgiveness and a second chance.

A story of hanging on and letting go, of redemption and reconciliation, and of a love that heals the deepest wounds, from the author of the breakout Southern fiction bestseller Under the Magnolias.

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Book Review: A Place to Land

9 Nov

My book club chose a favorite author for our October read. Lauren K. Denton’s books have always generated great conversations, but I think the discussion around A Place to Land was our best yet. It received a unanimous thumbs-up from my group.

Violet Figg and her sister Trudy have lived a quiet life in Sugar Bend, Alabama, since a night forty years ago that stole Trudy’s voice and cemented Violet’s role as her sister’s fierce and loyal protector. Now Trudy spends her days making sculptures from found objects and speaking through notes written on scraps of paper, while Violet runs their art shop, monitors bird activity up and down the water, and tries not to think of the one great love she gave up to keep her sister safe.

Eighteen-year-old Maya knows where everyone else belongs, but she’s been searching for her own place since her grandmother died seven years ago. Moving in and out of strangers’ houses has left her exhausted. After seeing a flyer on a gas station window for a place called Sugar Bend, Maya chooses to follow the strange pull she feels and finds herself on the doorstep of an art shop called Two Sisters.

When a boat rises to the surface of Little River in the middle of the night, the present and no-longer-buried past collide, and the future becomes uncertain for Maya, Violet, and Trudy. As history creeps continuously closer to the present and old secrets come to light, the sisters must decide to face the truth of what happened that night forty years ago, or risk losing each other and those they’ve come to love.

Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, Lauren K. Denton now lives with her husband, two daughters, and one fluffy dog in Homewood, just outside Birmingham. In addition to her fiction, she writes a monthly newspaper column about life, relationships, and how funny (and hard) it is to be a parent. On any given day, she’d rather be at the beach with her family and a stack of books.

My Impressions:

How do family secrets determine relationship dynamics? Can you sacrifice without losing your identity? These questions and more were asked in A Place to Land by Lauren K. Denton. Women’s fiction set in Alabama, this is truly a novel of the South. From the description of the river that runs through the town of Sugar Bend, to the small town feel, to the characters, you know you are in the South from the first page — and that’s a good thing. The story revolves around two 60ish women, Violet and Trudy, who are bound together by more than sisterhood. Their stories and those of supporting characters unfold as Denton spins a tale of lost opportunities, regret, and a glimmer of hope for a different future. I loved all the characters, but especially Violet who gave up so much for her younger sister. Should she have? That’s a question for readers to ponder. My book club talked about that a lot. The underlying mystery that is slowly revealed kept us turning the pages. We were all surprised by the ending, and by the time the book was finished we wanted much more. The author gave us clues to how the characters’ journeys would progress, and we loved putting our own spin on it, finishing with a most happily-ever-after.

I loved A Place to Land and recommend it, especially for book clubs.

Recommended.

Great for Book Clubs.

Audience: Adults.

(I read this book through the Kindle Unlimited program. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)

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If You Liked . . . A Place to Land

31 Oct

Lauren K. Denton never disappoints. Her books always spark great conversation at book club. This month’s selection, A Place to Land, felt different somehow from her other novels. There were magical elements that, in my opinion, raised the literary bar. I highly recommend this book! If you liked it too, here are some more reading recommendations for books that highlight the bonds of sisters.

The Fine Art of Insincerity by Angela Hunt

Three grown Southern sisters have ten marriages between them—and more loom on the horizon—when Ginger, the eldest, wonders if she’s the only one who hasn’t inherited what their family calls “the Grandma Gene”: the tendency to like the casualness of courtship better than the intimacy of marriage. Could it be that her two sisters are fated to serially marry, just like their seven-times wed grandmother, Mrs. Lillian Irene Harper Winslow Goldstein Carey James Bobrinski Gordon George? It takes a “girls only” weekend, closing up Grandma’s treasured beach house for the last time, for the sisters to really unpack their family baggage, examine their relationship DNA, and discover the true legacy their much-marrying grandmother left behind…

Hope Beyond The Waves by Heidi Chiavaroli

Massachusetts, 1993

After making a grievous mistake that will change her life forever, Emily Robertson is sent away to live with her grandmother on Cape Cod. When Emily finds a timeworn photograph buried in a drawer, she realizes her grandmother has concealed a secret even bigger than her own. Will convincing Gram to reveal their family history help Emily make the most important decision of her life or will it prove her parents right—that family scandal is better off buried and forgotten?

Massachusetts, 1916

Atta Schaeffer plans to marry the man of her dreams and whisk her little sister away from their abusive father. But when she is diagnosed with a dreaded malady, Atta is forced into a life of exile, leaving her sister in harm’s way.

On Penikese Island, Atta’s best hope lies with Harry Mayhew, a doctor who seeks a cure for his patients at any cost. But when experiments fail, Atta runs from Harry—and from God. Can she return to her sister before it’s too late? Or will her illness consume both her body and soul?

A testament to faith and love, Hope Beyond the Waves is the raw account of the journey of two generations of women running from desperate situations toward irresistible hope.

Letters from My Sister by Valerie Fraser Luesse

Two Sisters. One Single Event. A Family Changed Forever.

At the turn of the twentieth century, sisters Emmy and Callie Bullock are living a privileged life as the only daughters of a wealthy Alabama cotton farmer when their well-ordered household gets turned upside down by the arrival of Lily McGee. Arrestingly beautiful, Lily quickly–and innocently–draws the wrong kind of attention. Meanwhile, Callie meets a man who offers her the freedom to abandon social constraints and discover her truest self.

After Lily has a baby, Callie witnesses something she was never meant to see–or did she? Her memory is a haze, just an image in her mind of Emmy standing on a darkened riverbank and cradling Lily’s missing baby girl. Only when the sisters are separated does the truth slowly come to light through their letters–including a revelation that will shape the rest of Callie’s life.

Bestselling author Valerie Fraser Luesse weaves a complex and suspenseful tale dripping with intrigue, romance, and Southern charm.

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Top 10 Tuesday — Changing Habits

22 Oct

Happy Tuesday! I considered not participating in today’s TTT — too much thinking required 😉 and I wasn’t sure I had much change in my reading habits over the past years. However, I did think about it and discovered that along with changes in my real life, my reading life followed suit. It’s been 5 years since my husband sold his business to a corporate buyer and he started working for the man. 😉 I was suddenly and gleefully out of a job (change #1). Then two of my children married (change #2) and two grandchildren were born (change #3). My husband went from working 5 days a week to 4 days a week to 3 days a week (big change #4). So here I am with seemingly endless time on my hands, but it has been filled with more travel, more husband together time, and with seeing family a little more often. That means reading slowly shifted in priority. I used to read well over 100 books a year. I am currently 7 books behind in a 75-book Goodreads Challenge. I know, 50 plus books already read this year is way over the national average, but it is certainly a change for me.

All that being said, I really have changed my reading habits. My list details some of those changes and the books that fit them.

For more bloggers’ lists, visit That Artsy Reader Girl.

5 Top Reading Habit Changes in The Last 5 Years

I used to read everywhere and have 3 books going at the same time — one audiobook, one ebook, and one physical book. Now I occasionally read more than one book at a time, but for the most part I read just one.

Current read: A Place to Land by Lauren K. Denton

I used to go on solo road trips to see my daughter play college soccer while her dad stayed home and worked. A lot of my time spent in the car included an audiobook. I also found myself doing chores in longer blocks of time that I passed with an audiobook — not so much any more. I haven’t listened to an audiobook in forever. I have one started that I need to finish.

Audiobook to finish: The Gardins of Eden by Rosey Lee

My choice of books has changed a bit too. My go-to will always remain mystery/suspense, but I find I gravitate to historical fiction more often now.

The last historical fiction book I read: The American Queen by Vanessa Miller

Years ago I chose to read more for pleasure, than have-to (review books).

The last book I read because I wanted to: Something Borrowed by Rachel Scott McDaniel, Allison K. Pittman, and Susie Finkbeiner

I joined another book club in order to read outside my box. This has been so much fun. My small group chooses historical fiction featuring strong (and real) female characters.

The last book we read: Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles

What has changed in your reading life?

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