Driftwood Summer

Driftwood Summer

I truly enjoyed reading this splendid novel. Patti Callahan Henry has truly created a beautifully-written, engaging novel that is rich with emotion. Set in a Georgia beach community, it tells the story of the three estranged Sheffield sisters who reunite to save their family's beloved bookstore. As they host a week of bookstore events, all three are forced to confront the conflicts that tore them apart. In the end, their family loyalty and love for each other draws them together again. Magnificently told in alternating narratives, each sister's unique and relatable story is told. As a sister myself, I really, truly loved this heartwarming tale of the loving and imperfect bond between sisters. I highly recommend this wonderful, touching book!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A perfect summer read for bibliophiles!

I am a librarian that spent all the summers of my youth at the beach, so it doesn't get any better for me than a story that is set in a bookstore at the beach! This is the story of three sisters who each fall into their own molds - Riley, a single parent, is the reponsible one, Maisy has run away from family problems and confrontations -- all the way to California, and Adalee is a college student who plans to spend her summer with a boyfriend and does not expect family interference. The author gives each sister enough individuality to allow them to step far enough out of the molds to be memorable to readers. A lot of what happens is predictable, but readers will be more than satisfied when family obligations help all three girls realize just with whom and where they really belong. References to the book clubs meeting at Driftwood Cottage Bookstore, such as the Blonde Book Club, and to books themselves, including Beach Music by Pat Conroy, will leave book lovers smiling. Light and easy, this is the epitome of a perfect summer read!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great Relaxing Reading

This is absolutely the best of Patti Callahan Henry's books. She keeps the plot going, the people make you want to have lunch with them and I never wanted to lay the book down. Just don't read it at bedtime . . .you'll never get to sleep for wondering what those people are doing!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A WONDERFUL, CHARMING STORY!!

Patti Callahan Henry has truly created a beautifully-written, engaging novel that is rich with emotion. Set in a Georgia beach community, it tells the story of the three estranged Sheffield sisters who reunite to save their family's beloved bookstore. As they host a week of bookstore events, all three are forced to confront the conflicts that tore them apart. In the end, their family loyalty and love for each other draws them together again. Magnificently told in alternating narratives, each sister's unique and relatable story is told. As a sister myself, I really, truly loved this heartwarming tale of the loving and imperfect bond between sisters. I highly recommend this wonderful, touching book!!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

on writing

Speaking before a packed auditorium at the Decatur Library Auditorium at the Georgia Center for the Book on the launch celebration of her latest book on June 1, Patti Callahan Henry ponders how she writes. Using the Socratic Method, Henry has always asked "what if?" Then she mixes this curiosity with her loves. In Driftwood Summer, she blends her love of beaches, sisters, and bookstores coupled with love itself in masterfully tale of making choices. While always having a love of reading and blending her skills as a writer.



Professionally she majored in nursing at Auburn University; she always came back to her love of reading and writing. In her thirties she finally broke and became a writer following her passion. Her books are masterfully crafted processes that will enable the reader enter the lives of her colorful characters.



As a mother of three, she juggles her duties as super mom, car pool queen, and devoted wife to carve out time to write. "Her people", which include a staff of herself carries the duties of research, story telling, and completing her works.



Henry allows her books to organically involve and she gets to know her character as friends. What are their likes dislikes and taste is all part of her creative process. What is the common thread to her six novels are that she puts her characters at a "Y" crossroads in their lives. They have to make a life choice and deal with the change. These books are a perfect escape as we begin the dog days of summer.

Nice Read for Summer Time

I waited to read this book in the summer, and I'm glad. If you like books of people who were lost or life has been passing them by, and then they come home to find meaning again, this is a good book. I enjoyed it, especially since I have two other sisters myself.

A STORY OF LOVE, FAMILY, AND FORGIVENESS

Earphones award winner Julia Whelan is a former child actress who first appeared on screen at the age of eleven. She returned to acting following completion of her college degree. Television appearances soon followed, and she is seen in the 2010 fantasy thriller film Fading of the Cries. In great demand for various roles she has narrated romance and supernatural thrillers as well as both young adult and adult fiction. It's not easy to narrate a story in which the prominent characters are three sisters, but Whelan handles this with aplomb clearing defining each of the trio.

Popular author of The Art Of Keeping Secrets, Patti Callahan Henry now gives us a story a touching story of love and forgiveness. It is June when the Sheffield sisters are together once again in Georgia, Palmetto Beach to be exact, their small seaside hometown to celebrate their mother's birthday and attempt to save the family business, Driftwood Cottage Bookstore. After all, the cottage itself is said to be 200 years old, and has been a bookstore for a dozen of those years.

Riley, the eldest sister and a single mother, co-owns the shop with Kitsy, her mother. Maisy, the middle sister, is now a very successful interior designer based in California, and youngest sibling, Adalee, is in college. Each, of course, brings with them past feelings, unforgotten injustices (both real and imagined), and a bevy of other memories from days long gone by. Neither Maisy or Adalee are happy to be called upon to save Riley's book store - Maisy well remembers the summer handsome Mack Logan took a shine to her when he was Riley's best friend, and Adalee would much rather be spending the summer with her boyfriend, Chad.

Nonetheless, here they all are, including Mack whose appearance causes the sisters not only to remember but also to try to resolve some long kept feelings. DRIFTWOOD SUMMER is a story of love, family, and forgiveness.

Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

Wonderful Read

Couldn't put it down!!! Wonderful!!

Patti Callahan Henry among top of Southern writers

Patty Callahan Henry's "Driftwood Summer" is one of her best
summer novels and doesn't disappoint readers who especially
enjoy her beach reading with some substance to it.

A great read!

One of my favorite books of the summer!! I love the characters and can see family members in each one!! I grew up in a small town not far from the beach and I so remember things mentioned in the book. Lovely story!!

Patti Callahan Henry Does it Again

Summertime is perfect for reading, longer days, slower pace and vacation time. More daylight hours and hot weather doesn't mean that books have to be "lite." In fact a good read may have a summer setting but still can be considered literature. Patti Callahan Henry's Driftwood Summer is an exceptional example with well-developed characters inspiring empathy, an interesting location along the seashore (Palmetto Beach), a struggle to save the family bookstore and a storyline that keeps the pages turning.

Ms. Callahan Henry will be reading from and signing Driftwood Summer at two Atlanta area locations. On Wednesday, August 5, 2009 she will be appearing at 6:30 p.m. at the Book Exchange (2956 Canton Road, Marietta, GA). Fox Tale Book Shoppe will host the author on August 8 at 1:00 p.m. (105 East Main Street, Woodstock, GA). For a full tour schedule please visit the publisher's website www.penguin.com.

Sister fiction and memoirs are proliferating faster than corn and peaches reaching maturity in the summer. Driftwood Summer's protagonists, Riley, Maisy and Adalee Sheffield have the usual love/hate relationships but are bound together by their mother, Kitsy, the manipulative sort who tells her daughters everything that is wrong with them under the guise of love. When grown-up Riley, a single mother, asks Kitsy to "quit talking to me like I was 12 years old." Kitsy responds with, "God, sometimes I wish you were. Then I could change so much about what happened."

As the novel opens, planning for week of festivities to fete Driftwood Cottage's 200th anniversary is in the works to raise awareness and funds to keep the bookstore in business. Kitsy has had an accident and is bedridden while all the planning goes on around her much to her dismay. After all she is the only one who knows how to do everything absolutely perfectly, at least that what's she tells her daughters.

Maisy and Adalee, who have escaped their overwhelming matriarch by leaving town and creating their own lives, are on their way home (albeit not with much enthusiasm) to help Riley plan the events. The cottage was the family home of Mack Logan, the love interest of both Riley and Maisy when they were teenagers. Kitsy turned Driftwood Cottage into a cozy bookstore and Callahan Henry's description of the reading nooks, multiple book groups and the well-read staff make one want to venture out in search of this independent bookstore, snuggle up into one of the mismatched arm chairs and get knee deep into a great book. The bookstore is populated with customers whose hilariously quirky ways lend to the overall story and contribute to the raison d'être for keeping the store alive.

Each sister's character unfolds psychologically and with respect to jobs, boyfriends, and relationships between each other. The author moves seamlessly between the present and the past causing no confusion for the reader and the time frames spur the story line along with not a wasted word.

Mack Logan returns to Palmetto Beach for the anniversary party and to resolve his relationships with the sisters. The reader is cheering the characters along for a much deserved romantic outcome. Love moves in and out in the present day much as the snowbirds pack and unpack their homes annually. Let's just say that the end is deliciously satisfying.

Reading Driftwood Summer inspires one to dip back into Callahan Henry's previous novels for additional eloquent and rewarding storie

didn't want the book to end

this was my surprise book of the summer so far.....very engaging characters; believable plot; a page turner for sure.

Great book for all book lovers!

Driftwood Summer is a wonderful read about families and a wonderful beach community that comes together at the Driftwood Bookstore. A must read for summer!

Touching Story Especially for Sisters

I've read everything by Patti Callahan Henry, and, to be completely honest, this might be one of her best books. Driftwood Summer is a perfect book-club or beach read, but once you begin reading it, it's a story of three sisters broken by their past... The story is deeply touching and parts that I'm sure every sister or woman can relate to. In the beginning, the story begins a little slowly, but as the chapters go on the story escalates into a heartwarming tale of love, sacrifice, and the bonds of sisterhood that lie deep in every woman's heart. This book is a masterpiece by Patti Callahan Henry, and I highly reccommend it to any reader looking for a touching story (not extremely sad) of three sisters, a coastal hometown, and a beloved bookstore.

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