Like a southern-fried meal, fatty and indulgent, and the more delicious for being so.
In a sequel to The Three Miss Margarets (2003), Shaffer employs all the components of a Lady’s Southern Novel—but creates something fresh and likable from the old tricks.
Laurel Selene McCready is as shocked as the rest of small-town Charles Valley, Ga., when she learns she is sole heir to Miss Peggy’s vast fortune: the whole of Garrison Gardens and Resort. Friend to the grand dame in the last years of her life (and with the other Miss Margarets, too: L’il Bit and Dr. Maggie), Laurel is now the company owner in a company town. Though with no father, a drunken mother (now dead), a poor-paying job (now lost) and a penchant for kicking it up herself, Laurel is hardly capable of running a multimillion-dollar concern, or so scheming lawyer Stuart Lawrence would have her believe. All Laurel has to do is sign a power of attorney and Stuart will make all Garrison Gardens decisions for her (top of the list is a big employee layoff and a drastic hike in health insurance premiums). Despite her daughter-like relationship with Miss Peggy, Laurel has always hated the Garrisons and the way they’ve strong-armed the town for generations. Now that she has the power to change things, she realizes she doesn’t have the know-how. Meanwhile, she becomes intrigued with the mysterious first Mrs. Garrison and the trunk of lacy costumes she finds hidden in the house. While Laurel’s moral dilemma is sincere, the story’s real spice comes from the nicely imagined subplot detailing the Depression era exploits of the Sunshine Sisters. A second-rate vaudeville act, Iva Claire, her mother Lily and foundling Tassie travel the circuit, dodge trouble and aim for the big time while surviving on hush money arriving regularly from Georgia. It becomes apparent that the Sunshine Sisters have everything to do with Garrison Gardens and, by the close, lies, secret identities and a murderer are revealed.
Like a southern-fried meal, fatty and indulgent, and the more delicious for being so.Pub Date: June 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-6062-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
