Tag: Beaufort

Bed & Breakfast by Lois Battle

Bed & Breakfast

Lois Battle

Josie Tatternall, military widow turned Bed & Breakfast proprietor, is about to reunite her thrown grown daughters for the holidays.  Following a sudden medical emergency of one of her closest friends, Josie realizes the fragility and uncertainty of life and decides that there is no time like the present to bring her estranged family together after ten long years apart.  But will her three headstrong daughters agree?  Can the beauty and majesty of Christmas yield hope and forgiveness and unite this broken family?  Josie is about to find out.

I began this book with very high expectations.  After all, the cover is brimming with glowing reviews: “Full of warmth, humor, and characters I completely adore,” touted author Dorothea Benton Frank and “An irreverent holiday treat,” exclaimed the Chicago Tribune.  Author Cassandra King said the characters in Battle’s book were “wonderfully eccentric” and “heartwarming” who have “become her friends”.  But alas, you truly can’t judge a book by its cover and my experience with this story and its characters left me feeling more bah humbug than holly and jolly.  Before delving further, let me explain how I rate books—50% of my review is about the book itself (story, characters, pace, themes, etc.) and the other 50% is how the book left me feeling (enlightened, hopeful, disturbed, retrospective, etc.).  With a rating of 2/5 stars, the latter far outweighed the former as I am still reeling with contempt at such an aggravating cast of characters. Allow me to elaborate without spoiling the story too much…

First, let me go down the list of main characters that ran the gamut of predictable and overused stereotypes: Josie, the dutiful military wife who puts her own wants and needs last; Josie’s domineering and womanizing military husband, Bear; Cam, Josie’s eldest who fled small town South Carolina for the bright lights of New York only to be rudely awakened by the fact that she is a very small fish in a huge pond; Lila, middle child, doting daughter, and perfect Southern wife who seemingly leads an idyllic, charmed life; and Evie, Josie’s youngest who was a one-time runner-up in the Miss South Carolina pageant and who uses her legs and lashes to their full advantage.

Second, it was actually surprising to read a book, written by a woman, with so many unlikeable female characters.  The daughters were all self-centered, selfish, whiny, immature, and just plain insufferable. Josie was a little more tolerable, but it’s one thing to be loyal to a husband who is a known philanderer (at least she respects and honors her vows) and quite another to pledge allegiance to a friend who—more likely than not—had abused her trust and taken advantage of their friendship.  This makes Josie more of a chump than a champion.  Overall, I’ve never met a more contemptible set of women that I disliked a lot, respected less, and fell victim to their own self-destructive behaviors and personalities.  Oddly, it was the men (Josie’s brother-in-law, Cam’s love interest, and Lila’s husband) who came across as decent, sympathetic, reliable, honorable, and morally grounded. 

This was the first book by Lois Battle that I’ve read.  The Florabama Ladies’ Auxiliary & Sewing Circle is still on my bookshelf and, rather than potentially throw the baby out with the bathwater, I will be giving Battle another try to see if her female leads fare any better in this book. 

I’ll end this review by mentioning a sentiment of Josie’s that she recalls several times throughout the book as she looks at the lives of her grown daughters: she did the best she could.  Unfortunately, I believe Battle could have done a little better for all of the women in the Tatternall family.

Rating: 2/5

*Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com

The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith

The Story of Land and Sea

The Story of Land and Sea  

Katy Simpson Smith (Adult Fiction)

Tabitha’s grandmother died in childbirth as did her own mother.  “Death only comes to mothers,” she thinks and a mother she’ll never be.  But when young Tabitha is suddenly struck with yellow fever, her now land-bound father, John, returns to the sea with Tab in an effort to save her life.  After all, it was the sea that once gave life to her mother, Helen, and John is convinced that the sea can cure Tab as well.  Land, he knows, only brings about death.

Smith breaks her story into three parts: the first part (set in 1793) introduces us to John and his daughter Tab and their life in Beaufort; the second part (1771-1782) gives us a young Helen and her servant Moll and shows us how Helen and John meet; and the final part (1793-1794) concentrates on Helen’s father, Asa, as well as an adult Moll and her son, Davy.  The story spans three generations and deals with issues of loss, loneliness, and grief.

This is probably, by far, one of the bleakest books I have ever read.  Although this book is beautifully written, it gives away the fates of several main characters much too early in the story, leaving readers with a lot of backstory and very little else to look forward to.  Smith also deals heavily in religion and so we expect some semblance of redemption or spiritual revelation.  Again, the reader is left empty-handed.  But what might be the most incomprehensible decision Smith makes is choosing to devote the last third of her novel to perhaps the most uninteresting and uninspiring character in the entire book.  I wish this book had finished as strongly as it started, but unfortunately The Story of Land and Sea is really just a story without point or purpose.

Rating: 3/5

* Book cover image attributed to www.amazon.com