"An engaging tale that satisfies"

On idyllic PAWLEYS ISLAND, outside of food not much excites fifty-five years old Huey Valentine, but the works of newcomer Rebecca Simms does. He displays her paintings at the show of another artist and sells some of them. Rebecca admits to Huey's social companion, retired matrimony attorney widow Abigail Thurmond that her spouse Nat obtained a divorce in which she was proclaimed an unfit mother and has custody of their two children. Huey's octogenarian mother goes berserk when she hears this injustice and demands her son and Abigail fix it.

Abigail agrees to represent Rebecca in court although this is her first case since her spouse died a few years ago not long after their son passed away. She begins making inquiries into what happened, the behavior of Huey, and whether the city of Charleston committed a major faux pas as she plans to prove her client is the one fit to raise the kids, not her ex who has custody. Along the way, Abigail regains her lust for life.

Dorothea Benton Frank's latest South Carolina low country character study is an engaging tale that starts at a leisure pace as readers meet the prime players. Towards the middle of the book, the plot changes into a legal thriller in which Nat learns the hard way about women scorned. Though Nat is an extreme loser between pornography, a bimbo, and offering to pay for "enhancements" for his daughter to have twin edges when she tries out as a Clemson cheerleader, contemporary fans will enjoy this trip to Charleston and Pawleys Island.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 31, 2005

Summary

Bestseller Frank's fifth Lowcountry Tale is a lively story about friendship and family, Southern-style. On the small South Carolina barrier island that gives the book its title, semiretired attorney Abigail Thurmond spends most of her days playing golf and gossiping with her best friend, the portly, lovably aristocratic Huey Valentine. But their comfortable lives of leisure are turned upside-down with the arrival of one diminutive Rebecca Sims. Becca's obvious artistic talent and poise make it easy for Huey to show her art and hire her to manage his art gallery, but when his 86-year-old mother unearths Becca's tragic past, Huey can't help sticking his aquiline nose in her business. Once an attentive wife and loving mother of two in Charleston, Becca became the victim of her abusive husband, who turned her children against her and then filed for divorce. Abigail and Huey must help their new friend, of course, and as they draw closer to one another through Becca's tribulations, Abigail is finally able to examine the ghosts that have haunted her for years, and Huey gets to reveal a (pretty unsurprising) secret of his own. Frank's absorbing narrative manages to feel both authentically Southern and universally empathetic.