The Summer's End (Lowcountry Summer Book 3) by Mary Alice Monroe

     The Summer's End is the 3rd book in the Lowcountry tiology. The series tells the story of 3 half sisters drawn back to the grandmother's summer home on Sullivan's Island, SC. Mamaw and her housekeeper companion, Lucille, are hoping to cement the young women's friendship as well as lure them back to the Lowcountry. 
While each book can stand alone, it is much more rewarding to read them in order and fully understand the back story as you move to the next book.
In book 3, The women are struggling with the death of Lucille, Mamaw's impending move to an assisted living home, and, the sale of her beloved home, Sea Breeze. Dora is moving to her own home in order to enroll her son in a special school for children with autism. Carson is coming to term with her pregnancy and how to proceed with her life as a single mother, and Harper is struggling with wanting to be a writer and falling under the thumb of her mother to return to New York and her mother's publishing firm as an editor.
This is a romance novel, a call for environmental responsibility, a shout out to a more relaxed time and place, and a coming of age novel. Ms. Monroe has created full-body characters, a setting that is beautiful and challenging, and a story that is entertaining as well as intelligent. More than just a good summer read, this series leads you through the lives and loves of 5 interesting women. I highly recommend with 5 stars.

The Blanche White Series: Two Books (and counting) of Excellent Intrigue

 Blanche on the Lamb is the beginning of a sassy new series. Blanche White is an intelligent, middle-aged, African-American domestic worker in North Carolina. She is The Help in current time, with attitude. In this book, one of her employers stiffs her with a bad check which cause her checks to bounce, so she lays low by working for a rich family at their country estate. The only member of the family who seems humane and caring is the family's slightly mentally challenged Cousin Mumford. None of the others are worth the air they breathe.  The murder and subsequent antics of the family seem silly and at times comedic, against Blanche's commentary on race relations in Southern America. If you enjoy southern Gothic with attitude, you will love Blanche.


 Blanche Among the Talented Tenth tackles the ugly truth of discrimination among people of color. Her children are attending an elite private school in Boston, and are beginning to bring home uppity attitudes that Blanche does not like one bit. when the kids are invited to an exclusive Maine resort for wealthy blacks, Blanche decides to allow this romp through exclusive, black America. When one guest commits suicide, and another death leads to complicated questions, Blanche is dragged into finding the truth. This idyllic resort is littered with deceit, snobbery and generations of history, along with a bit of romance.
     Blanche is her usual sassy self, with wit and insight that uncovers secrets and a long history of racial discrimination. I cheer for Blanche once again, and for her integrity and her courage to face heart-wrenching decisions. I can't wait until the next volume is published!

The Summer Wind: A great read for the last days of summer

I received this book as an advance copy from NetGalley in exchange for agreeing to write a review. This is my true and honest opinion.

The Summer Wind (A Lowcountry Summer, Book 2)

By Mary Alice Monroe

I did not read Book 1 in this series, and while I am sure it would have added greater understanding if I had, I enjoyed this as a stand alone book.

This is a story of the family matriarch, steeped in Southern history and tradition, her life-long servant turned personal friend, and the matriarch's three granddaughters. Mamaw has brought the three half-sisters together to help them renew their childhood friendship. Mamaw is planning to sell the family home, but wants this one last chance to strengthen the bonds of these young women. 

Dora has fled a crumbling marriage with her young son, diagnosed with autism. Carson has returned from Florida in order to sort through her life and make decisions about her future. Harper has returned from New York, trying to decide if high-flying corporate life is what she want for her life.

During all this inner searching, there are new and renewed friendships to consider, Lucille has a health scare, Marietta (Mamaw) is reminiscing over the years spent on Sullivan's Island and hoping her plan to draw the three sisters together doesn't backfire.

This is a very enjoyable summer read, fairly light and easy, but with some interesting elements on what abuse is, how to interact with special needs children, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and race relations on a small southern island.

I highly recommend this and will definitely be reading Book 3 when it is published. I give this 4 stars out of 5.

Dreams of Being a Secret Agent

I receive advance copies of books through NetGalley in order to write and share reviews of the books. I am not paid other than to receive the books, and I have no association with either the authors or the publishers.




Noah's Rainy Day by Sandra Brannan is the 4th book in a series. I have not read the first three books, and had no problem following the story. It easily could be a stand-alone book, so don't worry if you haven't read the previous books in the series.


The story centers on Liv Bergan, and, her nephew, Noah. She is an FBI agent fresh out of the training academy at Quantico, stationed in the Boulder, CO office. She is living with her sister and her family, including 11 year old Noah and 9 year old Emily. Noah has Cerebral Palsy and is not able to walk, control his limbs, or talk. He and Emily have worked out a personal system for spelling words so that he can communicate. 


On Christmas Eve, a child traveling alone disappears at the Denver airport between flights. Liv is called in to help find the child. She is the handler for Beulah, a trained tracking dog. Beulah eventually tracks the child to the airport parking garage, where the sent ends.


While the FBI is painstakingly piecing together information about the child, Noah is at home trying to understand who the child is that is visiting his reclusive next door neighbor.

For the rest of the story, you will have to read the book.

Things I liked: As a former therapist, I loved Noah. He is bright and interesting, trapped in a limited functioning body. His inner ruminations make it clear how frustrated he feels by people who assume his mind is as crippled as his body. He is bullied by being called names, having his lunch stolen at school, and shunned by most of his class mates at school. But he perseveres.

I like Noah's sister, Emily, who loves her brother and understands him better than anyone else. I find the painstaking spelling system so difficult and time consuming, I can't imagine anyone actually using it, but I love the idea of the siblings working together to communicate.

The writing is suspenseful with some things predictable but many surprises as well. I was compelled to keep reading to find out what would happen next.

Things I wasn't so thrilled about: early on in the book, Noah ruminates about his lot in life too often and for too long. The repetition became boring, to me. There were times when Liv obsessed on things for too long, and both of these brought the story to stand-stills. Fortunately, this stopped once the action in the story got moving.

I also didn't like Liv waffling between the two men to whom she was attracted. Some of this is probably better understood by reading the early books in the series. But her remunating about them seemed very immature for her age; more like someone in high school.

I will definitely read the next book in the series and give this author and series another chance. With my reservations, I still very much enjoyed the overall mystery and am glad that I read it.