The Sunday Wife: A Novel

by Cassandra King (Illustrator)

Overview

Married for 20 years to the Reverend Benjamin Lynch, a handsome, ambitious minister of the prestigious Methodist church, Dean Lynch has never quite adjusted her temperament to the demands of the role of a Sunday wife. When her husband is assigned to a larger and more demanding community in the Florida panhandle, Dean becomes fast friends with Augusta Holderfield, a woman whose good looks and extravagant habits immediately entrance her. As their friendship evolves, Augusta challenges Dean to break free from her traditional role as the preacher's wife. Just as Dean is questioning everything she has always valued, a tragedy occurs, providing the catalyst for change in ways she never could have imagined.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786890446
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	07/02/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	544,239
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Cassandra King is the author of The Sunday Wife, The Same Sweet Girls, Making Waves and Queen of Broken Hearts. A native of Lower Alabama, she lives in the Low Country of South Carolina with her husband, novelist Pat Conroy.

Editorial Reviews

Until she met Augusta Holderfield, Dean Lynch was content to be a Sunday wife, the proud spouse of Reverend Benjamin Lynch. But gradually she realized that her husband was a different person than the congregation imagined, and she was at the crossroads of becoming a different person, too. Josephine Humphreys called The Sunday Wife "smart and funny and alert to the nuances of the complicated South."

A stunner . . . smart and funny and alert to the nuances of the complicated South.

Josephine Humphreys

Rich [and] satisfying.

People

An intelligent, witty novel, skillfully written.

Boston Globe

. . .Delivers haunting messages about the nature of love, freedom and forgiveness.

Orlando Sentinel

Cassandra King catches these quirky, complex people and their world flawlessly. A wonderful book.

Anne Rivers Siddons

enticing . . . the reader will be rooting for the liberation of the courageous and talented wife, Dean, from her repressive husband.

Sena Jeter Naslund

A dazzling tale of deception, heartbreak and transcendence . . . sparkles with vitality and truth.

Connie May Fowler

Joining a distinguished tradition of southern women writers, King explores the complexities of class and sexism.

Birmingham News

. . . the dilemma facing women [The role of wife? Can it be filled without losing yourself?] . . . what made it real.

Jackson Clarion Ledger

A wonderful book. Cassandra King catches these quirky, complex people and their world flawlessly.

Anne River Siddons

Shines without turning into a sermon.

Florida International Magazine

Finely drawn characters and complicated social intrigue make Kings second novel (after Making Waves in Zion) a charming read. When Dean Lynchs ambitious preacher husband, Ben, is assigned to a pulpit in the small Florida town of Crystal Springs, Dean is resigned to the prospect of yet another church-owned house and the necessity of putting aside her own beloved music (she plays the piano and the dulcimer) in favor of the congregations choir. Orphaned as a child, the retiring Dean has spent 20 years of marriage in the shadow of her overbearing, charismatic husband, always feeling out of place. But when she befriends Augusta, a wealthy, well-born, caustic beauty whose attendance at the Crystal Springs Methodist Church would be Bens greatest coup, Dean finds herself coming out of her shell"and tangled up in secrets she is not prepared to handle. The only false note comes from the gay couple Augusta befriends, who border on stereotype. The rest of Kings secondary cast, which includes a sympathetic psychic and the magnetic but sinister former preacher at Bens church, is a captivating bunch. King has written a truly heartwarming story, a tale of turbulent emotions and the vagaries of public opinion in a small Southern town; she has a sure winner here. Author tour. (Sept. 4) FYI: King is married to novelist Pat Conroy. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

It's difficult to know what to make of this novel. For the first two tapes, this could be an American version of the British novelist Barbara Pym's writing: a portrait of the well-intentioned but power-hungry preacher with his mismatched mate. King (Making Waves in Zion) does an excellent job of creating eccentric Southern characters whose sense of formality and manners lets them go about their everyday lives without their real personalities, or their haunting pasts, being exposed. But on the third tape, with the death of the book's most intriguing character, the sense of mystery ends, and we are left listening to a generic and unremarkable romance novel, predicting most events before reader Joan Allen mentions them. To make matters worse, the work ends with Dean, the protagonist, suddenly finding God all around her and spewing a sermon more worthy of her husband. This is ultimately a frustrating novel (at least in this abridged version). Many will enjoy it, but finding the right audience will be a question of trial and error.-Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal