Last Light Over Carolina by Mary Alice Monroe

Last Light Over Carolina 

by Mary Alice Monroe

Book Club Meeting: Monday, January 12, 2015

From the "New York Times "bestselling author of "Time Is a River "comes a new lyrical and emotionally satisfying novel that will sweep readers away to the seductive southern landscape--in the tradition of Sue Monk Kidd and Anne Rivers Siddons.

With a warm voice that brings the South to life, "New York Times "bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe writes richly textured novels that intimately portray the complex and emotional relationships shared among family, friends, and the natural world. Here, in "Last Light Over Carolina," Monroe tells the haunting and touching story of a longtime shrimp boat captain and his wife of thirty years the day he is injured at sea.

On an otherwise ordinary day, in a small shrimping village off the coast of South Carolina, a boat goes missing. The entire town rallies as all are mobilized to find the lost vessel. Throughout the course of one day, flashbacks of Bud Morrison, the captain on board, and Carolina, his wife, reveal the happier days of a once-thriving shrimping industry juxtaposed with the memories of their long term marriage.

Through her wonderfully evocative storytelling and keen insights into the human heart, Mary Alice Monroe has yet again delivered an exceptional and engaging work of fiction.

Christmas Party!

Our annual Christmas Party at Ryans on 838 Odum Road Gardendale, AL 35071

-- GIFT EXCHANGE --

Wrap up a book you've read and swap it!

See you there!!!

The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

 

November 10, 2014  @ 6:00pm

The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree(The Darling Dahlias #1)

by Susan Wittig Albert

The country may be struggling through the Great Depression, but the good ladies of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their chins up and their town beautiful. Their garden club, the Darling Dahlias, has just inherited a new clubhouse and garden, complete with two beautiful cucumber trees in full bloom.

But life in Darling is not all garden parties and rosemary lemonade.

When local blond bombshell Bunny Scott is found in a suspicious car wreck, the Dahlias decide to dig into the town's buried secrets, and club members Lizzy, Ophelia, and Verna soon find leads sprouting up faster than weeds. The town is all abuzz with news of an escaped convict from the prison farm, rumors of trouble at the bank, and tales of a ghost heard digging around the cucumber tree. If anyone can get to the root of these mysteries, it's the Darling Dahlias.

Monday, October 13th 2014 @ 6:00pm
Meeting in the Adult meeting room at the Gardendale Public Library

The Apple Orchard (Bella Vista Chronicles #1)

by Susan Wiggs

#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs brings readers into the lush abundance of Sonoma County, in a story of sisters, friendship and the invisible bonds of history that are woven like a spell around us. 

Tess Delaney makes a living returning stolen treasures to their rightful owners. She loves illuminating history, filling the spaces in people's hearts with stories of their family legacies. 

But Tess's own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, and a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. 

Then Dominic Rossi arrives on the doorstep of the San Francisco shop Tess hopes to buy, and he tells her that the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. Tess has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel. 

The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she hadn't heard of. 

Isabel is everything Tess isn't: all softness to Tess's hard angles, warm and nurturing where Tess is tightly wound. But against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, with Isabel and Dominic by her side, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. 



"Wiggs tells a layered, powerful story of love, loss, hope and redemption." 

— Kirkus, starred review