Shem Creek

Pat Conroy has called her books hilarious and wise, noting that they are funny, sexy and usually damp with sea water. Anne Rivers Siddons said of Sullivans Island that it roared 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 marries 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 of 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