Review: 132. Summer in the South by Cathy Holton...

Cathy Holton is this month's Featured Author, and Summer in the South is her latest novel...


Title: Summer in the South
Author: Cathy Holton
ISBN-13: 9780345506016
Hardcover:
Publisher: Random House, 2011
Purchase at IndieBound, Amazon, The Book Depository
Source: Cathy Holton

drey's thoughts:
Summer in the South is a story about a young woman who's trying to figure out her life--who she is and what she wants. She's rallying though the loss of her mother and getting dumped by her lover, when a college friend offers her sanctuary at his family's home in a small town in Tennessee.

Ava hopes the solitude will spark her creative juices and get her started on writing again. She hopes to find out about her roots, and reaches out to the man who might be her father. What she gets is some of that, along with a decades-old mystery that nobody will talk about. Of course, this being a polite Southern town, nobody's actually going to tell her outright to let sleeping dogs lie. They'll just hint at it instead, even while knowing that this Yankee gal isn't going to get it...

I enjoyed Ava's journey, even when I thought that she was a little clueless at times and a little stubborn at others. I also enjoyed reading passages from the novel she's writing, even though I was confused at first--was this history, or her imaginings?

Summer in the South is a lovely piece of Southern fiction that'll immerse you in its hospitality and gentility. Enjoy it with a glass of sweet tea.

drey's rating: Excellent!