Reviews - The Beach House
After losing her high-powered advertising job in Chicago, Caretta Rutledge grudgingly returns to her low-country roots at her mother's behest. Cara has long resented her mother, who focused her maternal efforts more on looking after the annual loggerhead turtle spawn than on protecting herself and her children from their abusive father. But when Cara learns that her mother is ill, she must lay her bitterness aside and try to make amends. Cara starts by restoring her mother's small beach house and joining the same turtle brigade she resented while growing up. In the process, she reconnects
with an old friend and finds love in the arms of a local boat owner and naturalist.
This poignant read won't disappoint fans of so-called "Southern Fiction"; the South, which represents both poison and tonic, is eloquently portrayed here, and its healing properties inevitably come to the fore. Just enough information about the loggerhead turtles and their spawning cycle opens each chapter, swiftly engaging the reader from the outset, and all of the integral characters are richly developed. With its evocative, often beautiful prose and keen insights into family relationships, Monroe's latest (following The Four Seasons) is an exceptional and heartwarming work of fiction that is bound to please fans of women's fiction and romances alike. (May)
I made the mistake of reading this powerfully emotional book in an airport on a trip. I laughed and I cried through this whole book. Not only that, since I live in South Carolina, this book touched me down to my soul!
This multi-faceted book had layers upon layers of emotionalism that just made me want to keep reading. Mary Alice Monroe is a consummate storyteller whose books just keep getting better and better. I know this one will go on my keeper shelf for sure.
With each new book, Mary Alice Monroe continues to cement her growing reputation as an author of power and depth. THE BEACH HOUSE is filled with the agony of past mistakes, present pain and hope for a brighter future
Whether you are one of the hundreds of sea turtle volunteers in the southeast--or just wish you were--this beautifully written story brings us a glimpse of their dedication and commitment to the conservation of the loggerhead sea turtle.
Mary Alice Monroe's The Beach House is profoundly moving, from the short prologue in which a woman feels sorrow and regret about her relationships with her now-grown children, to the final pages in which hope replaces sorrow.
Cara's thaw throughout that last hot South Carolina summer of her mother's life makes for a truly wonderful read. The mother-daughter relationship that in real life is often fraught with difficulty is a subject tackled in many books - some more successfully than others. Cara and Lovie's story is one which explores strengths and weaknesses, the kind of strengths that become weaknesses and the type of weak moments that lead to great moments of strength of character and courage. There are no medical miracles for Lovie, but the time spent with her daughter, with Toy, with her grandbabies, and with the turtles she looks over will surely melt your bones as you read the evocative prose of The Beach House.