I finished this book going "that's it?". I didn't know it was the first part of a trilogy - that makes more sense. I was bored with this book. It read like a TV series you watch weekly with no real dramatic 'catch' events and the Mamaw character being completely unrealistic. Monroe's descriptive ...
Mary Alice Monroe's follow up to The Beach House takes readers back to Olivia's younger days and gives the heartbreaking romance between Olivia and the true love of her life, Russell Bennett. After getting bits of their tale in the first installment, I had to get the details. Torn between duty...
I found the book compelling..kind of a fictional companion to Jane Pauley's Your Life Calling. Monroe uses information about monarch butterflies in each chapter's beginning. The information relates both to the butterflies in the story and the journey of the characters. Strong women characters ...
Another good story from Mary Alice Monroe! The shrimping industry is such a vital business in the Carolinas and this story delves into the men and women whose lives are directly involved with shrimping. So much information is given that I at times was overwhelmed. However, it was never to the poi...
The audiobook was read by the author, which was wonderful. She was great at doing different voices for different characters.There were some things that bothered me a little. The story could turn a tiny bit corny at times, and though most of the conversations were very realistic(she really did a g...
Actual Rating: ***1/2Another women's book club story that had all of the usual heartaches and life complications; however, Monroe's writing made working through the tangle of story lines well worth the reading time.Opening Lines:PrologueEve of ReturnJanuary 7, 1998Tonight, I will return to my Boo...
This story is a follow-up to The Beach House; another Monroe book I enjoyed. This story is well written in that the journey of the turtle named Big Girl mirrors the journey of Toy Sooner the main character.The story is fairly predictable, but interesting. I found myself wanting to know much more ...
I picked this book up from a selection a friend donated to raise money for animal welfare here in Egypt. It is not really my kind of book, but I thought I would give it a go. It turned out to be a book that mirrored my own feelings of myself at the point of reading it. A troubled soul trying to ...
This is my first try at a Mary Alice Monroe book, and I must say that on the whole I expected to feel more moved by it. Admittedly, it was enjoyable enough, although a little old fashioned. It did bring back a lot of images of my trip to South Carolina and the Low Country, back in 2006. I truly l...
I'm sorry, Mary Alive Monroe, but were you trying to rewrite Jane Eyre? Because you didn't do a very good job. Honestly, the predictability of this book was ridiculous and 50 pages in I said, "Oh, she's trying to re-do Jane Eyre and is failing." SPOILERS AHEAD There is everything from the fem...
The Four Seasons, by Mary Alice Monroe, narrated by Sandra Burr, produced by Brilliance Audio, downloaded from audible.comThere were four sisters, with the last name of Season. Their father called them The Four Seasons and had nicknames for most of them. Jillian, the oldest, was Jillie. Beatri...