ISBN: 978-0399583117
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: 7/11/2017
Format: Audio
My Rating: 4 Stars The women who spent their childhood summers in a small southern town discover it harbors secrets as lush as the marshes that surround it... Bonny Blankenship’s most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Amid the sand dunes and oak trees draped with Spanish moss, they swam and wished for happy-ever-afters, then escaped to the local bookshop to read and whisper in the glorious cool silence. Until the night that changed everything, the night that Lainey’s mother disappeared. Now, in her early fifties, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children. During lazy summer days and magical nights, they reunite with bookshop owner Mimi, who is tangled with the past and its mysteries. As the three women cling to a fragile peace, buried secrets and long ago loves return like the tide.
Review to follow.
Praise for the Bookshop at Water's End
“Patti Callahan Henry has written the best novel of her career with The Bookshop at Water’s End. I absolutely adored it and predict it will be one of the most loved books of the year. In fact, it’s so good I wish I’d written it myself!”—Dorothea Benton Frank, New York Times bestselling author of Same Beach, Next Year
Letter from the Author
I am so pleased to bring you my newest novel, THE BOOKSHOP AT WATER’S END—my love letter to bookshops and readers alike.
Since childhood, bookshops and libraries have been my sanctuary, places where I could find the next story to help me understand the world around me. It is there I also found companions who loved stories and between-the-pages adventures as I did. Oh, don’t we all love how the community and warmth of bookshops can bring us together? And that is exactly what happens to the characters in this book, as they navigate their complicated lives, unfold mysteries from the past, and rediscover love stories that need mending.
THE BOOKSHOP AT WATER’S END is set in South Carolina, between a river house and a bookshop. It is there we meet Bonny Blankenship, an emergency room doctor who has made a tragic error in the ER and has packed up her troubled 19-year-old daughter, Piper, to return to the summer family home she hasn’t visited in almost thirty years. Soon Bonny’s childhood best friend, Lainey, joins them with her two small children. But it’s not as simple as two best friends reuniting, because during their last summer as young, innocent 13 year olds, Lainey’s mother disappeared and Bonny fell in love with Lainey’s brother.
Now, back in the place where it all began and seemingly ended, they reunite with the bookshop owner, Mimi, who knows more than she’s willing to tell.It is this return to the shore that unlocks the answers to a past mystery. Welcome to the lives of Bonny, Piper, and Lainey—where the past will change the future, where memory is locked inside the geography of the lush Lowcountry, and where one small bookshop at Watersend brings it all together.
With Love and Gratitude, Patti Callahan Henry
Praise for Patti Callahan Henry
and her novels “A Southern woman’s journey into truth. An emotionally intense, beautiful, and unforgettable novel. I loved it.”—Robyn Carr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Virgin River novels “Patti Callahan Henry’s writing is as lush and magical as the Lowcountry she loves.”—Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author of A Lowcountry Wedding “The sea sings in every syllable.”—Anne Rivers Siddons, New York Times bestselling author of The Girls of August “A lyrical exploration of love and longing, secrets and suspicion, and family and friendship.”―Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The Weekenders “Patti Callahan Henry asks the big, equivocal questions about what it means to be a mother, a child, a family, and the answers she finds in And Then I Found You will surprise you, provoke you, and rearrange your heart.”—Jacquelyn Mitchard, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Two If by Sea “This is everything you expect from Patti Callahan Henry—lyrical writing, characters worth rooting for, a sure-footed belief in the power of goodness—plus a twisty plot that will keep the pages turning long into the night.”—Joshilyn Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of The Opposite of Everyone “Patti Callahan Henry understands the delicate balance of power inside a marriage.”—Sara Gruen, New York Times bestselling author of At the Water’s Edge “This tale of a Lowcountry woman’s reblossoming will touch your heart and make you wonder about long-forgotten possibilities waiting to be rediscovered in your own family and soul.”—The Charleston Post and Courier (SC) “Patti Callahan Henry joins the ranks of Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy.”—Deborah Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Beloved Woman “Patti Callahan Henry seamlessly combines mystery, family love, and personal journey all in one engrossing tale.”―Diane Chamberlain, USA Today bestselling author of Pretending to Dance
About the Author
BIO Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author of twelve novels, including the upcoming The Bookshop at Water’s End (July 2017). A finalist in the Townsend Prize for Fiction, an Indie Next Pick an OKRA pick, and a multiple nominee for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Novel of the Year, Patti is a frequent speaker and luncheons, book clubs and women’s groups. The mother of three children, she now lives in both Mountain Brook, Alabama and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband.
More About Patti
Patti Callahan Henry is a New York Times bestselling author of Between the Tides; Where the River Runs; When Light Breaks; Between the Tides; The Art of Keeping Secrets; Driftwood Summer; The Perfect Love Song: A Holiday Story; Coming up for Air; And Then I Found You; The Stories We Tell; The Idea of Love and The Bookshop at Water’s End (July 2017).
A finalist in the Townsend Prize for Fiction, an Indie Next Pick an OKRA pick, and a multiple nominee for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Novel of the Year, Patti is published in nine languages. Her articles and essays have appeared in Southern Living, PINK, Writer’s Digest, Birmingham Magazine and more. Patti is a frequent speaker and luncheons, book clubs and women’s groups.
Growing up in Philadelphia as the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, Patti learned early the value of storytelling. At the age of twelve, her family moved to South Florida where Patti found the sanctuary of libraries and began her slow but steady journey into understanding the power of story to navigate confusing times in life.
Patti attended Auburn University for her undergraduate work, and Georgia State University for her graduate degree. Once a Pediatric Clinical Nurse Specialist, she now writes full time. The mother of three children, she now lives in both Mountain Brook, Alabama and Bluffton, South Carolina with her husband. Read More
