Carolina Spice
Eighty-year old Maisie Pringle has found love with Skipper, a younger man devoted to her, who owns a Llama farm of all things. When Dorothea Benton Frank’s–The Hurricane Sisters--opens, she is waiting for her family to arrive at the fancy restaurant for her birthday lunch.
Her daughter Liz is supposedly happily married to financial wiz Clayton, but there is kind of loneliness in her life that is left even more acute with the departure of her kids. The death of her beautiful, artistic sister Juliet in the distant past, hangs over their lives, since Maisie keeps bringing up her dead daughter in every conversation.
Liz’s daughter Ashley lives with her friend Mary Beth in the old family beach house, works at a low-end job and hopes to be an artist. Liz thinks her mother is spoiling Ashley with money and undeserved praise.
At the lunch, Liz’s son Ivy turns up with his Asian partner James, and it is clear to the family that the much older man is not merely a business partner, and they have to suddenly deal with this new facet to Ivy’s life.
Liz fills her empty days working with a shelter for battered women, and treats it as a mission to be undertaken seriously. As she tries to raise funds for victims of domestic violence and their children, it is revealed that the South Carolina, where they live, tops the list in the state wise domestic abuse statistics.
As Liz discovers her husband’s infidelity, Ashley gets into a doomed relationship with Senator Porter Galloway, who seems to be a Prince Charming, but is arrogant, narrow-minded, and when provoked, violent.
Even though the family is dysfunctional and Liz finds herself almost isolated by her mother’s indifference and daughter’s independence, there is love buried beneath the coldness, and when crisis—and a hurricane—strikes, the family comes together to battle it out.
While it’s all too pat and neatly tried up, Frank narrates the story with straightforward simplicity, and makes it inspiring and heartwarming. Worth a read.
The Hurricane Sisters
By Dorothea Benton Frank
Publisher: William Morrow
Pages: 320
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