"Great character study"

Linda Breland flees New Jersey to come home to the Carolina Low Country because she worries about her two teen daughters and a cash shortage that would improve with a lower cost of living. It does not hurt her to also leave behind her former spouse Fred who she divorced five years ago and who is remarrying a younger woman.

Linda told her two children that they are going to her hometown area on a vacation failing to say that it is a permanent move. She figures she can deal with that problem after they settle in the area. Her older child Lindsey has fewer issues probably because she is going off to college in the fall. Her younger daughter Gracie struggles with the environmental change from the Exurbia wrong crowd that she hung with to rustification that is until she meets Alex, the son of Linda's boss.

SHEM CREEK, the latest Low Country drama is an enjoyable character study that predominantly looks deep into a mother and daughter relationship as each struggles to adjust to a radical change in lifestyle. Linda is an interesting lead protagonist as she is a steel magnolia with some northern brass; Gracie makes the tale with her Jersey Girl attitude crashing against the gentle Carolina sod. Though the action is limited, series fans and anyone who enjoys a slice of life family drama style will appreciate Dorothea Benton Frank's current Carolina comfy caper.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 11, 2004

Summary

Pat Conroy has call her books "hilarious and wise," noting that they are "funny, sexy, and usually damp with seawater." Anne Rivers Siddons said of Sullivan's Island that it "roars 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's married 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 from 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.